


Tightwire

by Lamachine



Series: Tightwire [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Noir, Angst with a Happy Ending, Detective Noir, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 63,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamachine/pseuds/Lamachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes all you can do is walk the line, and hope someone catches you if you fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1959

Cheap whisky scorched Shaw’s throat on the way down, and left nothing but a bitter taste of old wood. It was a disappointment she had long learned to live with; work was slow, what will all the fine young men roaming the streets, ready for some action. She swallowed another mouthful, eyes on the sparkling medal of valor on her desk.

 

It dangled from a lamp, almost mocking. She groaned before she shoved it in the bottom drawer hidden from sight once again, along with a black and white photograph of a young couple in love. _Paris ’18_ , it read in the back, but Shaw had no need for the caption. Those two mementos, along with a box under her bed, were the only vestiges of the past that she had agreed to keep. Ghosts, all of them – one day she didn’t mind having them around, and the next she got angry.

 

She did angry quite well, though.

 

All of it held no meaning anymore, not nowadays when the Second World War was a distant memory, just like most things Shaw had deemed important in her life. Like the souvenirs, she had become devoid of any usefulness over time. Politely fired from the army with a check in one hand, and the Medal of Honor in the other; her worth as a soldier forgotten as soon as the country had found peace.

 

Now she reigned over this office alone, its three dusty rooms and a small restroom where one could barely stand. She had turned it into her home, somehow. She didn’t mind the discomfort; how many times had Cole and she camped out in the cold rains of Austria, in that damned old tent that leaked and fell on them at the first blow of wind?

 

But the memory only brought more anger.

 

On the radio, the announcer spoke wonders about the military pilots that had been selected earlier this week to be the first humans sent into space. Where they would meet certain death; no one would convince Shaw otherwise. Simply because the Soviets had launched a rocket to crash on the moon a couple months back, it didn’t mean the old U.S. of A had to send people to follow. _For progress_ , the word was being thrown around everywhere, but Shaw couldn’t agree with that.

 

Progress was just another empty reason to send kids out to die.

 

Swallowing another mouthful, Shaw considered locking the door and turning in early. It was way passed business hours anyway – not that private investigators really had that luxury – and she had little hope for a new client. A few case files enthroned on the corner of her desk begged for attention, but there was an annoying twinge in her neck and the quiet buzzing of alcohol in her muscles. They would have to wait for morning.

 

Shaw was just about to stand up when a figure appeared at the door, a tall and quiet shadow pressed against the tainted window.

 

Before the third knock on the door already Shaw had her gun in hand, the whisky quickly forgotten. Finger on the trigger, she rested the firearm on her thigh, waiting for the stranger to make a move. The silhouette raised a hand in hesitation, and Shaw cleared her throat.

 

“Come in,” she ordered more than she invited.

 

The radio crooned with Santo & Johnny’s _Sleep Walk_ as the door slowly opened, the steel guitar crying out as heels clicked on Shaw’s floor. The stranger walked like the whole city belonged to her, and by the looks of her costly jewellery, maybe it did. In her fancy blue dress, fur coat and gloved hands, she clashed with Shaw’s dark den, and yet did not bat an eyelash at the scene.

 

“Detective Shaw?” she noted in surprise, like many other clients before her.

 

Shaw rolled her eyes. It _said_ ‘Private Investigator’ on the door. “We’re closed,” she groaned in response, throwing her gun on her desk. The noise seemed to startle the woman who blinked, clearly hesitating between the exit and the chair.

 

Carter’s disapproving voice rang in the back of Shaw’s head – _stop scaring away your costumers, Sam, try to show some compassion_. Over the years Carter had started to send some people to Shaw for help – cold cases that wouldn’t be reopened, people desperate for answers and that the NYPD would not consider relevant. Carter called it _doing the good work_ , but for Shaw it had always been a job first.

 

Undeterred by Shaw’s frustration, the woman took one step further, resting one gloved hand on the back of the chair. When Shaw nodded – although, not without sighing in annoyance first –, the stranger sat down in front of Shaw’s desk, crossing her legs and curling her lips at the decor.

 

“I have been told very good things about your... services,” the woman flattered Shaw with a warm smile, voice almost purring.

 

Shaw refilled her glass of whisky, settled on not offering one in return. She remained standing then, an intimidating position of sorts. “My name is Caroline,” she continued, eyes falling. “Lambert, Caroline Lambert.”

 

The name sounded familiar, but at this time of night Shaw had little patience to wonder. “What can I do for you, Miss Lambert?”

 

She insisted on the last name like an insult; somehow, Shaw already knew why Caroline had stepped into her dusty office. The coat, the nice jewelry, the revealing dress... that type of women did not venture south of the 30th Street for something a fancy NYPD officer could fix.

 

Caroline pursed her lips. “It’s...” she flashed a nervous smile and moved a curl that had fallen in front of her eyes. She leaned in, elbow on her knee, the dress more and more revealing. It seemed... scripted. Shaw had known women like that all her life, and she did not fall for those tricks. Still, it wasn’t bad to enjoy the view for a bit. “It’s my husband, you see.”

 

There was always a husband.

 

“I don’t do that kind of thing,” Shaw retorted, raising her glass as if to punctuate her sentence or make a point. Over the years she had agreed to work a lot of boring cases, but spying on mistresses was a new low.

 

Caroline’s eyebrows curled into a frown. “What sort of thing, Detective?”

 

The way her tongue wrapped around the word – Shaw had too much whisky, maybe. It sent a burn in her stomach and she licked her lips absently.

 

“Spying on cheating husbands,” she explained, hoping the reminder would help quiet that small burn of desire.

 

Caroline laughed. “Oh, dear, no,” she shook her head as if the idea was entirely ridiculous, but Shaw knew better. It did not matter how good the woman looked in a dress – if the guy could get with his secretary, he would. She didn’t really judge that – had little care for it anyway, but apparently that wasn’t the way marriage was supposed to go down nowadays. The thought of marriage brought back to mind that picture in her drawer, her parents happily engaged and she winced as she sipped her whisky.

 

“My Jeremy is...” she hesitated, pulling out a cigarette holder from her small purse as her smile grew bigger, “he’s quite taken with me.”

 

Caroline’s smile faltered then, as she struggled with the cigarette. “Lately he’s been distant. He comes home later than usual, and he’s always tense,” Caroline continued with tears coming to her eyes. All things that did not disprove Shaw’s theory, and yet there was something odd about this woman that Shaw might understand more clearly if she wasn’t busy drinking so much. She absently grabbed a lighter from her desk and leaned in to light up Caroline’s cigarette, and tried to ignore the way Caroline’s cheeks flushed wildly.

 

Caroline’s hand came to meet Shaw’s, holding her steady as she lighted up the cigarette. The touch sent an electric spark up Shaw’s arm, a discomfort that turned pleasant in her gut. She almost didn’t want Caroline to let go.

 

“I think something is going on at the club,” Caroline added once she had taken in a long smoke.

 

Shaw frowned. “What club?”

 

“Jeremy owns Decima,” she talked as if Shaw ought to know what it meant. But Shaw wasn’t the kind of girl who partied all night, and lately the only drinks she had were at the shitty bar down the road, after Carter’s shifts. “It’s been very successful,” she continued. “I don’t usually go there myself, but I think something... God forbid,” she breathed in sharply, as if scared of admitting something. “I think something _illegal_ is happening there.”

 

Shaw wanted to laugh at how naive she sounded, how desperate, too. And yet she found herself intrigued.

 

“Why would you think that?”

 

“The other night, we were at a restaurant, and a strange man came over,” she explained. “Jeremy turned pale and excused himself from the table... and when he came back, he simply wasn’t the same.”

 

Shaw wasn’t convinced, and Caroline seemed to notice. “I...” she blushed, “I pretended to go to the restroom so that I could hear their conversation.” She talked like a school girl that had hit every right step on the way to high society. It was annoying and Shaw pictured for a moment how she’d shut her up, and then stopped the train of thought as she realised exactly _how_ she wanted to do so.

 

“The man threatened my husband of putting him out of business,” Caroline continued, “and I’m not sure he meant only the club.”

 

Shaw nodded. She’d start by the club first, and work her way from there. It wasn’t the case of the year, but it wasn’t as boring as it could’ve been, and by the looks of it, this woman could pay.

 

“That man, he ever came to your house?”

 

“No,” Caroline promptly answered. “Whatever is happening, Jeremy has kept it away from our house.”

 

Shaw noted down the name of the husband and the club, busying herself so that she wouldn’t stare at the other woman too much.

 

“Will you help?” Caroline asked as she slipped a hundred dollar bill on Shaw’s desk.

 

It was more than she’d normally ask for surveillance pictures, but Shaw wasn’t about to pass up on the offer. She grabbed the bill and faked a smile. “It’s what I’m here for.”

 

“When should I come back here?” she asked, rising from her seat to put out her cigarette in Shaw’s ashtray. Shaw tried not to react at the familiarity, at how she could feel Caroline’s warmth as she was inches away. “In two days, perhaps?”

 

“I’ll find you when I have something, Miss Lambert,” Shaw answered, rising from her seat to show the woman out.

 

Caroline shook her head. “Please, call me Caroline,” she insisted with a smile. “But if it’s all the same to you, Detective, I would rather you don’t visit me at home.”

 

Shaw frowned. Clients rarely minded when she showed up at their doorstep, unless they were involved in some criminal activity themselves. “Okay,” she agreed anyway.

 

“Jeremy and I... we are very private people,” she explained.

 

And just like that, Shaw remembered her place. The rich people hired her to find their bullshit, but she wasn’t one of them. She was nothing more than the help; and the help did not show up at the front door.

 

“Of course,” Shaw faked a smile as she opened the door. “I understand the need for privacy.”

 

Caroline stepped out and seemed to hesitate before she turned to look at Shaw again. “Thank you, Detective.”

 

This time, the word only made Shaw feel cold, and she closed the door quickly, banging on the doorframe a little too loudly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

No matter how odd meeting Caroline had been, it felt good to be back on a case – the few ones Shaw still had going on all needed more paperwork than anything, and she was tired of being in the office. With a camera safely tucked in her messenger bag she followed Lambert to work that next day, easily avoiding detection.

 

It seemed rather futile until Lambert’s car took a sharp turn in an alleyway, a few blocks from his club. Shaw parked her vehicle rapidly before she continued on foot, back against the brick walls as she tried getting closer without being seen. She noticed a fire escape running just above her head and that continued down the alley, and quickly climbed it. The metal ladder clunked heavily under her weight at first, but with the noise of midday traffic, she remained unheard. She slowly crawled closer to where Lambert had left his car, evidently meeting with someone.

 

When a turquoise Skyliner stopped in front of Lambert’s Corvette, Shaw pulled out her camera, eager to find out some answers. She zoomed in to get a good shot of the two men that pulled out of the Skyliner. Tall, dark and angry, they seemed to her like any regular NYC thugs.

 

One of them pulled out a large, black bag from the trunk before he shoved it into Lambert’s hands. Undeterred by their aggressive behavior, Lambert unzipped it, evidently checking that whatever was inside was what they had agreed upon. Money, Shaw guessed, although from where she stood she couldn’t be sure.

 

From where she was standing above them, Shaw couldn’t really follow a conversation. She couldn’t even read lips, but she could understand body language. Lambert was being cocky, moving around like he had no worry over the fact that he was outnumbered. The two thugs stayed in one spot, focused, sharp. Oddly threatening, in front of Lambert’s carelessness. When a police officer appeared at the entrance of the alleyway they moved quickly, pulling out guns like they had been expecting trouble.

 

Shaw took in a sharp breath; there was no doubt that whatever was going on had to be illegal, or it would be staged this way. She slowly dropped her camera to trade it for a gun. Even though she had no intention of stepping in to protect either side, she knew how those things went. Always some innocent kid getting caught in the crossfire. She clenched her jaw, waiting.

 

Down in the alleyway, Lambert’s behavior hadn’t changed. He turned around and greeted the policeman almost joyfully, from what Shaw could hear. As if they were old friends. As if Lambert wasn’t holding a bag filled with dirty cash, or drugs, or even guns for all Shaw knew.

 

Behind him, the two thugs hadn’t moved, guns still aimed at the policeman’s head. From threatened to hesitant, the uniform’s body turned still as Lambert offered him a hand to shake.

 

Shaw frowned as the policeman grabbed Lambert’s hand, agreeing to a deal she could know nothing about. She remained filled with questions as the officer nodded and left, the two thugs putting away their guns without a word.

 

With a bit of relief and a strange disappointment, Shaw traded her gun for her camera. She shot a few more pictures, regretting that she hadn’t thought of getting a good one of the police officer. With plate numbers to run and two men to ID, she still had a good lead to start with. If there was one thing she had learned as a sniper, it was not to rush things.

 

Keep the target in sight, don’t hold your breath, wait for the right moment.

 

As the two thugs returned to sit in their Skyliner, Shaw quickly climbed down the fire escape, rushing to get behind the wheel of her own car. Following Lambert through traffic, she realised rather early on that he was headed back to Decima, his club. Another place Shaw would have to poke around, but seeing as it was almost evening already, it seemed like it wasn’t really the time. Better not to be seen, not to let her presence known.

 

Shaw dropped the pursuit and drove back to her office instead, eager to see a closer shot of the two thugs from the alleyway. Although she had hated it at first, spending time in her darkroom developing the pictures of the day now had become part of her routine. She didn’t mind preparing the chemical mixtures, the burn it sent in her lungs, the stillness of it. Some nights, however, she hated the quiet.

 

Some nights, she would have traded anything to be far East, running through the jungle with a rifle on her back and a handgun ready to kill, blood and mud on her uniform. But she would think about Cole, about her father, and she would push it aside, this need for adrenaline, for a thrill, for something explode.

 

In the red lighting of her darkroom, Shaw stared as faces emerged on the paper. She didn’t recognise any of them, and had little to go on with plate numbers that she couldn’t run, and yet it was something. The first pieces of a puzzle she would solve, just like any other that had come her way these past few years.

 

One look at the time reminded her that she had to get going. Shaw grabbed a few pictures, hoping they were dry enough by now, and shoved them in her messenger bag. She checked that she had everything – gun, camera, keys – and then ran out the door.

 

On the way to the bar she wondered for a moment if she should bring Carter in on this case. She usually had little qualms about it – Carter was a police officer and risked her life everyday – but some worry tugged at the back of her mind. She kept replaying in her head the moment the policeman had shook Lambert’s hand and looked the other way; there was something odd about it.

 

The man hadn’t taken a bribe, hadn’t been threatened apart from the thugs’ guns, and yet he had left in a matter of seconds. _Politely_ , even.

 

There were too many unknowns to get Carter involved, but somehow that was also the sole reason Shaw had to ask. The plate numbers wouldn’t run themselves, and Carter might recognise the thugs from a previous case.

 

But there was danger on the horizon, Shaw could feel it. Nothing added up quite like it should and she didn’t like the idea of dragging someone else into this. The memory of Cole resurfaced, his gentle eyes filling with panic; an oath that Shaw had broken.

 

It left a bitter taste in her mouth as Shaw stepped into the bar, the loud music and cigarette smoke chasing the thoughts away. At their usual spot Carter already sat, a beer and a man in front of her.

 

“I’m not sure you could handle it, _love_ ,” Carter sneered at the man. When he went to cup a feel of her thigh Carter grabbed his hand and twisted his wrist, making him cry out in pain. “ _Again_ ,” she groaned through gritted teeth, “I’m waiting for someone, and it isn’t you.”

 

Shaw smirked at the sight. She crossed the bar with her eyes on the man, pleading apologetically for Carter to let him go. When Shaw reached his side she went for his collar, dragging him off her usual seat while Carter let him go.

 

“I think the lady doesn’t want to be bothered,” Shaw mocked as she pushed him aside.

 

In the man’s eyes, shame and anger burned bright – enough to make a guy do something stupid. And yet before he could throw a punch at Shaw, the bartender appeared at his side. “Frank,” he placed a hand on his shoulder, “how ‘bout you cool off outside?”

 

Shaw heard some grumble about women not knowing their place, and then Frank went out the door, the bartender’s eyes locked on him until the door shut behind him.

 

“Usual?” the bartender asked Shaw without really looking, not waiting for an answer before he returned behind his counter.

 

Carter was still laughing and shaking her head when Shaw sat down.

 

“Making friends?” Shaw asked her, her mood finally looking up.

 

“You know me,” she replied, warm eyes meeting Shaw’s.

 

Carter had about as many friends as Shaw had – mainly they had each other, and that was it. Sometimes a certain detective Fusco would come through for her, helping out with a case without too much whining, but at the station and on the streets, Carter was alone.

 

She never complained about it, although Shaw could imagine how hard it must be, to be a black woman in a herd of white boys that didn’t know better. And still Carter kept her job and pushed forward, applying for promotions at every opportunity, keeping her head high up and setting the example for her son.

 

Shaw had nothing but admiration for her. “Good day?” she asked before silently thanking the bartender for her beer.

 

Carter waited for him to leave before she nodded. “Finally got that dealer,” she answered with a grin.

 

They cheered to Carter’s victory before she explained how she had caught her guy, using an informant Shaw had sent her way a couple of days before. When Carter mentioned meeting him in some shady alleyway it reminded Shaw of the pictures in her messenger bag, and Shaw pulled them out under Carter’s curious eyes.

 

At the first glance, Carter raised an eyebrow. “Jeremy Lambert?” she took the small pile of photographs and shook her head. “How you end up with that fish?”

 

“His wife’s paying for me to keep a look on him,” Shaw answered, taking a sip of her beer as Carter shot her a surprised look.

 

“That one...” she shook her head as she laughed, “maybe he’s the one who should keep an eye on her.”

 

Shaw frowned. “What do you mean?”

 

Caroline’s dress came to mind, revealing and hugging her curves. The way she batted eyelashes at Shaw, a purring voice and a hand holding Shaw’s, the lighter’s flame reflecting in her eyes... Maybe Carter had a point.

 

“She’s got a record,” Carter stopped staring at the pictures for a moment, “drunk and disorderly, indecent exposure...”

 

That didn’t seem to fit the quiet, imposing elegance of the woman in Shaw’s office.

 

“Anyway,” Carter returned her focus on the photographs, one hand twisting her beer bottle absently, “Lambert’s untouchable.”

 

Shaw thought about the policeman in the alleyway and that handshake. It bothered her more than not knowing what was in the dark bag Lambert had retrieved from the thugs, and yet she didn’t mention it. Instead, she shrugged; “why?”

 

Sighing, Carter’s fingers started to tear the beer bottle’s etiquette, a tell that she was getting antsy over this. “That man has friends, Sam,” she warned. “A lot of them.”

 

It had never deterred Shaw from working a case before. She had shot Nazis for a living; a man throwing money around wasn’t about to scare her off. She didn’t do fear, anyway.

 

As if following her train of thought, Carter leaned over the table. “I’m not kidding,” she insisted with worried eyes. “Whatever this woman’s paying you? It’s not worth the trouble.”

 

But Shaw had started this private investigating thing not just to pay rent, but to kill boredom. She missed the thrill of hunting down someone, the adrenaline of putting her life in danger. She missed being useful, having a purpose, and it seemed like taking Lambert out of whatever shady business he was in would offer all of that. Or at least, be enough of a distraction.

 

The thought only brought back Caroline into mind and Shaw had to admit, she was a fine distraction at that. That she had a criminal file seemed odd however, and not for the first time Shaw wondered who that woman was, exactly. It was like there was something hiding under the surface, something lurking in her every move and it intrigued Shaw more than she would’ve liked.

 

It made her want to scratch the surface, to break the skin. She swallowed a mouthful of beer, trying to bury the quickly derailing train of thought.

 

“Tell me you’re letting this one go?” Carter asked, unconvinced.

 

Shaw nodded, even though her mind was still locked on the image of Caroline and that blue dress. Yeah, she wasn’t going to let that one go so easily.

 

* * *

 

 

The cold air of the night helped Shaw sober up a bit as she silently made her way in shadows. In Lambert’s driveway someone killed the Corvette’s engine and turned off the lights, unaware of Shaw’s presence in the nearby bushes.

 

The alcohol still buzzing in her muscles made Shaw lightheaded as she sneaked, strangely cheerful at the thought that she could easily slash Lambert’s tires if she felt like it. Carter had spent the night mentioning how pretentious he had been when he had came by the station to bail his wife out of jail, and as most times when she got drunk, Shaw felt oddly chivalrous.

 

But she had a job to do, and she wouldn’t be very much of a spy if she made the mistake of letting her presence known for some petty revenge.

 

Lambert walked up his driveway without a care in the world and Shaw pulled out her camera as a reflex, following him like a shadow.

 

Before he could put his key in the door it spun open, the sudden rush of light coming from inside blinding both him and Shaw for a few seconds.

 

In the doorframe, a redheaded woman stood, wearing nothing but a see-through negligee. Shaw blinked a few times before she finally lifted her camera, taking a few shots while still safely hidden behind the Corvette. The redhead looked awfully angry and yet Lambert didn’t seem bothered.

 

“Missed me, Caroline?” he asked with a stupid grin, and received a slap in return.

 

The woman then pulled him by his collar, locking their lips together in a rush, kissing him like the end of the world was near. Shaw took a few more photographs as they made out, until her fake moans grossed her out and she bailed.

 

It wasn’t until she was lying in bed that Shaw realised that the woman she had seen tonight was the real Caroline. The wife Carter had arrested a few months back for taking her clothes off to bathe in a public fountain.

 

She had no idea who had come into her office the previous night and hired her to spy on Lambert, but it definitely wasn’t his wife.

 

Well, that was new.


	2. 1940

Another person in her place might have been running, but for Sam Groves being a little more than half an hour late was absolutely acceptable. Where her neighbor (and somewhat friend) Daniel would invent stories – _alarm didn’t go off, traffic was horrible, had to help an old man cross the street_ – Sam would simply shrug. Time, after all, changed nothing to the fact that she could be teaching the class instead of most of her professors.

 

This morning she walked through the campus with little interest to the other students’ affairs, barely noticing the laughter and loud conversations all around. That was one thing that had made an impression on her, when she had first moved here; in Bishop, all days were quiet, no matter what. In New York, there was noise everywhere, at every hour; scents she had never smelled; foods she had never tasted. It had been a thrill, those first few months, discovering a world she had dreamed of ever since she was a child. Now, it had become the usual landscape; a background in her somewhat boring daily life.

 

She had picked the New York University for one reason only; it let just about anyone in. As a math prodigy she certainly had the grades to enter any university, and with a scholarship too; only Sam was far from Ivy Leagues, with her diplomas from Bishop High. Instead of abandoning her dream for a higher education, like her mother had repeatedly told her to, Sam had worked and saved money, enough to attend a few classes every semester.

 

Her small dorm room probably looked like a prison cell to most girls from the city, but to Sam, it was the first space that was hers – a stepping stone to the life she wished for herself. An existence away from martyrs and crosses; a life free of her mother’s bile and a small town’s ignorance.

 

Quickly she found that even though she had always despised people, she revelled in the anonymity of a crowd. As a math major she had expected her classes to be mostly empty, and yet every day she found the auditorium filled; serious faces leaning over books and taking notes like the world would stop spinning if they stopped writing. It was fascinating and new, at first; these days she was mostly annoyed at the fact that her preferred seat would probably be taken.

 

 _Just get there early Root_ , Daniel kept insisting. She liked that he hadn’t frowned on the name she had picked for herself, even though she would never tell him that. But to her, it had meant something, to share that name she had cherished in secret all her time in Bishop. It was strangely liberating, to use it now. _Root_ made her more akin to cold mathematics and the creative order of equations; different from the mess and heat of Bishop’s summer days. It was what she aspired to be, in a way; an equation of sorts. A long, complicated line of numbers and symbols that would explain how she ticked – and she ticked so differently than most.

 

“Ms Groves,” she heard a man calling her from outside just as she stepped in the northern building.

 

She stopped as a reflex more than anything, messenger bag digging in her shoulder almost painfully, filled with too many books again. She hadn’t noticed the ache in her muscle before, as Daniel had given her a puzzle to solve that morning. Something about a rope circling the Earth, and how long it would be if it had to be a foot from the surface at all points. The answer was just under the surface of her thoughts, nagging, and she sighed in irritation at being delayed in finding it.

 

The man reached her side, limping and holding himself up with a cane. Sam recognized him from the day before, where she had audited his conference. He had fascinating ideas about cryptography and computing machines that had kept Sam awake for most of the night, thinking of endless possibilities ahead.

 

“Professor,” Sam smiled politely, although seeing him up close reminded her of his harsh tone the previous day, when she had interrupted him during his conference to point out a mistake in his equation. Finch had been quick to dismiss her – the young girl in the back of the room, not fit to discuss serious and complicated notions with the men around her.

 

In Bishop she had been the strange girl who had no father, stains on her clothes and a mother that heard voices. She had seen it in their eyes, the disdain for her existence; the pity. Here in New York the look was the same, although the pity was more akin to annoyance and contempt. In the city she was an outcast not for where she came from, but for who she was; a very strange girl.

 

Sam was different, had always been. She couldn’t change that. She interrupted classes and understood the subjects better than anyone else; she knew math – understood puzzles, solved equations. Sam was efficient and frightening, and she would let no one belittle her – not even an invited guest at his own conference.

 

“I was hoping we could talk,” Finch offered with a nod, and Root blinked in surprise. She had expected him to be angry, perhaps even try to have her expelled from her classes for calling him an imbecile.

 

She frowned. “I was under the impression that you would rather have me shut my mouth,” Sam recalled how he had so impolitely asked her to keep quiet during the rest of his expose – an order she had obeyed by storming out of the class, spewing insults.

 

Less than an hour later, she had found herself in the campus library, her favorite place these days, searching for all the information she could get on computer science. She had spent most of her night there, reading everything she could about this recent field of study – and there was nothing much written on the matter, yet. A few articles here and there, a few books filled with inaccuracies. She had been frustrated at the lack of data and had cursed her temper for leaving the conference early – not that she would ever tell Daniel that he had been right about that.

 

Finch sighed so quietly that Sam almost missed it. “I realise that we have started off on the wrong foot, Ms Groves-“

 

Slightly annoyed, she cut him off; “it’s Root.”

 

“Root?” Finch frowned for a second, obviously surprised and confused, and then shrugged it off. “I have an offer for you.”

 

Sam suddenly brightened up and Finch smiled in return. “2pi,” she breathed out joyfully, mind obviously elsewhere. Finch raised a curious, if not a little annoyed, eyebrow. “Oh it’s...” she felt a grin coming on her face at the realisation that she had finally solved her puzzle, “the solution is 2pi.”

 

Finch looked startled for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure just who he was talking with anymore. Sam recognized the expression; it wasn’t unlike most people in Bishop when her mother went on about things that simply couldn’t have happened; events and people that lived in her mind only. “But you have an offer,” she shrugged off the memory and settled back into the conversation, blinking as if still blinded from the sunlight, even though she had stepped inside.

 

“I’m here to offer you a position,” Finch nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose.

 

That was unexpected, and for a moment Sam found herself speechless. No one had ever offered her anything of consequence, and especially not someone she had called an imbecile in front of more than two hundred people.

 

“Tell me, Ms Groves,” he breathed deeply, as if gathering courage or maybe just convincing himself to go through with his proposal, “how do you feel about protecting your country?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her mother refused to speak.

 

It had been a week now since Sameen had told her she was going to enroll, and still, her mother did not say a word. It was strange, this quietness in the apartment, every day. It wasn’t like her mother had ever been chatty, but she had an opinion on everything. Had a proverb for every occasion, an advice even when it was unwelcomed, and this time, nothing.

 

Barely a glance when Sameen walked into a room.

 

Sameen had expected tears, maybe anger. She had thought that her mother would fear losing a daughter, already having a husband fighting overseas. She had imagined how her mother would talk of the uniform as if a plague taking over her family one member at a time, or of how she had fled violence all her life only to see her loved ones running towards it.

 

But her mother had kept quiet, and taken a liking to spend her evenings staring at that old picture from 1918. Back in Paris when she had barely just met Sameen’s father, a soldier fresh off the boat who had fallen head over heels for this Persian girl in exile. This young woman who had known nothing but disillusionment, falling for this man and his dreams of freedom and peace. Sameen’s grandparents had disapproved; they had fled Iran after the revolution with every intention to return, and now their daughter wanted to run to America? They couldn’t understand.

 

Sameen had heard the tale a thousand times over, though she had little care for a love story. Yet as a child she asked to hear it again and again, only to know more about places she could only dream of. She wanted to see Paris and Tehran, wanted to see more than the back roads of the States.

 

Even more, she wanted to do what her grandparents and her parents had done before; fight for what they believed in. Fight for their ideals, for their freedom, to protect the people they loved. Sameen couldn’t help but dream that one day, it would be her turn to do just that; for her life to have a meaning, a purpose.

 

As she neatly packed her clothes into her travel bag, Sameen absently wondered if they would be useful, once she would be given fatigues. Her father would have been able to answer, if he hadn’t been an ocean away, fighting for his country in a place so foreign Sameen couldn’t imagine it. She had seen black and white films, but it failed to show her what it was truly like over there. She thought of asking her mother, and then stopped herself; her mother wouldn’t speak.

 

Once she was done, Sameen spared her empty room one last glance. The bus taking new recruits to the base would leave soon, and Sameen had to be on her way. There was a new life ahead, one that she had chosen for herself, and not for the first time she wished that her mother would understand.

 

She grabbed her travel bag and closed the bedroom door behind her, stepping into the kitchen to grab something to eat on the bus. On the counter top she found a paper bag containing an apple and a sandwich, just like her mother would prepare when she went to school, as a kid.

 

“I made you lunch,” her mom explained with a broken voice behind her. “For the road.”

 

Safely tucked in her chest, Sameen’s heart snapped and turned into a dead weight. She turned around to find her mother rushing into her arms to hold her tight. Embarrassed and uncomfortable, Sameen allowed the embrace anyway, dropping the travel bag on the floor to return the gesture. She let her mother’s head nest against her shoulder, and smelled her perfume for what felt like the last time.

 

Arms that had never been weak wrapped around Sameen, pulling her so close that for a moment Sameen wondered if she could still breathe.

 

“I’m going to be okay, Ma,” she promised her mother before she kissed her forehead.

 

Her mother hummed lightly before she pushed herself off, and shook her head. One hand came to cup Sameen’s cheek. “My sweet, sweet girl,” she forced a smile. “You’re going to be better than okay.”

 

It sounded like a lie, but Sameen didn’t mind. Her heart was beating again, louder; prouder perhaps.

 

She thanked her mother, grabbed her bags and her lunch, and walked out of the apartment without a second look. Following her father’s footsteps, she had a uniform to put on, lives to protect, and a world to discover.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam didn’t know what was more imposing; the five white columns guarding the doors, the excessively green grass, or the American flag waving almost violently against the sky. It was all very grave and official and she frowned as she climbed up the few steps, two soldiers glaring at her. She offered her ID card as she had been instructed and waited, her eyes stuck on the men’s uniform, or more likely the guns that hanged at their waists.

 

It was a strange thought, that at any moment, one of them could pull out the weapon from their holster and shoot her dead. Better yet, that she could reach out and grab the handgun for herself.

 

“Ms Groves,” Finch’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she blinked, confused.

 

“I didn’t know _you_ would be the one to show me around,” Sam noted. She had meant it with respect; surely Finch had better things to do. And yet it came out careless, like she had hoped to meet someone else. She didn’t fuss over her tone, anyway; as much as she admired Finch’s work, the remembrance of his dismissal was still fresh in her mind.

 

Daniel had told her not to keep a grudge; it had been his only advice, before she left New York for Virginia. She didn’t see what was wrong with that, really; she’d rather remember that all humans were faulty than be disappointed again.

 

Inside the building seemed just as wide and imposing as the outsides; large halls with high ceilings, too much space for a simple corridor. As if hearing her thoughts, Finch paused. “It used to be a school for girls,” he stated like it explained the ostentatious architecture.

 

The schools Sam had attended in the past had never looked like this; in fact the whole of Bishop High could probably fit in one of those halls. She wondered what kind of life had the people who sent their daughters to school here; how different from hers it must be. Not better, really; easier perhaps. But not better, she repeated to herself.

 

Before they even stepped into the next area, Sam could already hear the sound of people typing, and a quiet roar of constant conversation. She could picture the computing machines even before she saw them; glorified typewriters that printed out impossibly long codes. Revelling on the noise and chatter Sam followed Finch without a word and ignored the curious glances thrown at her.

 

It was a new world to discover, in a way. She had never really thought much about cryptography before Finch’s conference, but it had quickly turned into a passion. Exactly the kind of puzzles she wanted to solve; Sam had spent her life buried in secrets and things to hide. Memories of her dead mother’s insanity that brought shame to her cheeks. Souvenirs of the lies she had to spin, in fear that she would be taken away, and sent off somewhere. It could have been a weight, but Sam saw it as a shield. A way to distance herself from others, by never letting them know who she was, what she was.

 

But having this one, giant secret was exhilarating, in a way. Like she had found a purpose. A place where she could fit, with all her weird quirks and hidden stories that she would never reveal.

 

At every corner she noticed armed soldiers, their faces as still as their bodies, keeping watch. She wondered if the Signal Intelligence Service had handpicked them like Finch had chosen her, or if this was just another detail for them. If they were disappointed not to have been sent overseas to play war; if they had any idea of the work that was being done, and how it would certainly shape the years to come.

 

“My office is through here,” Finch informed her as they turned into yet another large corridor.

 

Sam wondered, not for the first time, where she would be stationed exactly. What her task was going to be. Finch had been vague despite her curiosity, and no matter how she had tried to investigate the matter, it had been impossible for her to understand _what_ , exactly, the SIS was doing in Arlington Hall.

 

Once he had closed the door behind her, Finch gestured for her to take a seat, and went to sit behind his desk. The large window behind him had been blocked with horizontal blinds that drew lines of sunlight all over the wall, and Sam found herself fascinated by the books that piled up on every available surface.

 

“Do you know what Enigma machines are, Ms Groves?” Finch asked her with a raised eyebrow.

 

For the first time in her life, she wasn’t sure of the answer.

 

She had heard little about them – computing machines that encrypted messages for the German military at the end of the last great war. She had yet to see one for herself, but she guessed that since then, the American forces had managed to retrieve and copy the technology. Finch confirmed as much, with the added knowledge that the SIS had little success in decoding the missives. Sam, amongst others, had been selected and hired to study the computing machine and see what made it work.

 

The politics behind the affair held no meaning to her; Sam had been aware of the current war – how could she not, it was everywhere – but she did not care for it. Men killing each other for beliefs were just another proof that humanity was flawed in too many ways that one could count.

 

It was, however, a challenge. Sam had rarely been in a position where someone else’s mind could follow her train of thought, and here in Arlington were assembled the most brilliant mind in America. She was eager to get to work, to find out answers and seek out new equations, new parameters she had never considered before. It was deeply intriguing, even though for the moment it came with long, boring speeches about noble causes and making a difference and saving soldiers’ life. Sam half-listened to Finch, her brain focused on new information, a new setting.

 

In her mind she recalled the previous room, the one with the computing machines. Dozens of neatly aligned desks, with phones ringing and people typing; tons and tons of pages filled with code. It was busy like the interior of a beehive would be, and it reminded her of the one that the bees had built just outside her bedroom window in Bishop. Sam had never minded the presence of the insects; the constant buzzing had been background noise; a familiar hum that allowed her to rest.

 

Even here in the depths of Arlington Hall, the chaos was somewhat reassuring, and when later, strangers walked past her station looking at her like she was an alien, Sam smiled.

 

This could be home.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They were a small contingent and most soldiers on base kept mocking it, but Sameen was proud to be one of those few women who had been allowed to enroll in the U.S. Army. Ever since she was a child she had never really understood why girls weren’t allowed to do what boys did – she usually ran faster, hit harder, did things better than them. It seemed completely illogical to dismiss her simply because some parts of her body were different than the guys’.

 

As she grew up her father had told her very little about his time in the army. He had mentioned some friends from his squadron, one or two stories of lives that had been saved. But he had always been a private person, and it was with patience and curiosity that Sameen had slowly put together the details dropped here and there, in the detour of a conversation. It hadn’t been enough to warn her of the dusty barracks, the pain of constant effort and the hardship that came with military training, but Sameen had no regrets.

 

She wondered where her father was these days – he had been deployed to London a few months ago, but with the multiple transfers from one base to another, Sameen hadn’t received a single letter informing her of where he had been shipped to next. She had no news about his wellbeing or her mother’s, and yet unlike the other women in her squadron, she never worried about them. The others called her _hard ass_ , at first. Now that they knew her better, she could see the glimpses of fear in their eyes when they looked at her, sometimes.

 

Unlike all of them, Sameen didn’t flinch when a grenade exploded next to her in training, or when she heard a rifle firing towards her position. She was faster than most soldiers, and stronger despite her height. Where others talked about the war as a dark cloud over the horizon, as a fate they could not escape, Sameen was intrigued and curious. She wanted to know what was out there, wanted to join the fight.

 

She had been eager to please her instructors, wanting to complete every training exercise better than anyone else. She had been pushing her limits for months, never taking time off base when the recruits had permission to leave. Instead she stuck around, spending hours in the field molding her body into a machine, or in the barracks taking guns apart and putting them back together in a rush. While others enjoyed their last moments of freedom in bars and cafes, Sameen turned herself sharp and dangerous.

 

And yet she hadn’t been sent abroad; she counted the days until it would finally happen. That date had been delayed once again and Sameen had been angry all morning, despite the reasons behind that decision. Being picked for _special training_ – whatever that was – was an honour, of course, and as someone who wanted to do her best Shaw was proud. But as someone who wanted to make a difference, after months of training she was eager to move on.

 

She reported to special training right on time, just minutes after the sun came up. Unlike most training exercises, this one was mixed between women and men, and Shaw glared at the few male soldiers who dared glance at her like she was anything but another uniform. She didn’t recognise the other women in the ranks and she wondered if she was in the right place. Only when they made the roll call and spoke hers she realised that she really was.

 

“Shaw?” the instructor stopped in front of her, frowning. “Are you related to Captain Jacob Shaw?” he questioned, glancing from the list of names to her – the shortest recruit in the rank of soldiers before him.

 

“He’s my father, sir,” she replied as proudly and strongly as she could muster this early in the morning, eyes locked into Hersh’s cold stare. Ever since she had enrolled, a lot of instructors had tried to break her, to make her stop being so daring, so headstrong. It hadn’t worked; Sameen was proud of her heritage, from both her American father and her Persian mother, and not one of them would take that from her.

 

Hersh nodded. “He’s a good man,” he agreed his eyes returning to the list of names. “Served with him in ’17, but he was just a kid then.”

 

“As you were,” Sameen couldn’t stop herself from saying. It was never a good idea to speak without having been called upon, and especially not to be so familiar; she had learned that the hard way. And yet Sameen had trouble remembering the rules of authority; they were all soldiers after all, no matter the rank. She didn’t worry about the punishment, she never had; she only waited for it.

 

“We’re all kids before the war, recruits,” he stated loudly, taking a step back. “If you think you’re ready for what’s coming, think again.”

 

He took another look at Sameen. “Now drop down and give me fifty.”

 

Down the line of recruits, a young man chuckled. Frustration grew louder in Sameen’s stomach and she tried to set it aside as she kneeled, ready to start her series of push-ups. She channeled her annoyance – at the boy, at being delayed in joining the fight, at the horrible food they had to swallow every day – and placed her palms on the sand before her.

 

She was already at the fourth push-up when she noticed that Hersh’s boots weren’t in front of her anymore; he had moved to stand in front of the boy that had laughed. The recruit had a cocky smile on his face, one that vaguely reminded Sameen of her father’s, on that photograph from 1918 Paris.

 

“What’s your name son?” Hersh asked him with a curious expression.

 

The recruit stood a bit taller, straightening his spine. “Cole, sir. Michael Cole.”

 

“You want to share with us what’s funny?” Hersh insisted, his voice sharp and loud in the morning air. This early in the day had a strange quietness to it, as if the entire military base was holding its breath.

 

Cole didn’t dare blink. “Nothing, Sir.”

 

Hersh smirked, taking a step back and pointing at the sand in front of him. “On the ground. Fifty,” he ordered.

 

Sameen heard a short sigh, and the fumbling of clothes as Cole dropped to his knees. As she reached her eighteenth push-up she looked to the side a moment, only to find the scrawny kid trying to complete his series, and failing miserably. She tried not to laugh as she accelerated the pace, making sure she would complete the set way before he did. Cole looked at her for a moment, noticed the competition she was silently trying to goad him in, and rolled his eyes in annoyance.

 

Sameen kind of liked that kid.


	3. 1959

She would have been lying if she said that she hadn’t been waiting for that moment. Shaw repressed a smirk when a familiar silhouette appeared at her door, a thin and tall shadow she knew belonged to _Caroline_ – whoever she truly was. She pressed a hand over the phone and invited her to come in, focusing on the voice at the other end of the line instead of the woman walking in.

 

In the afternoon light and without her fur coat Caroline still looked impressive, and yet slightly different. She walked into the office almost tentatively, a shy smile curling up her lips. Shaw absently wondered if she was playing another role today, running another con perhaps, and missed the information the secretary had just given her.

 

“I’m sorry, what’s the address again?” Shaw forced herself to be polite, no matter how much the high-pitched voice on the other side of the line was making her cringe. She wrote down the number and street name – an abandoned house outside of town, where one of her cases, some drunken hobo that needed finding, might have hidden this time. She promised herself to check it out later, no matter how invested she was into finding out Caroline’s story.

 

As she rolled her eyes at the secretary’s incessant chatter, Shaw’s eyes met Caroline’s. Instead of the seductive glee that had been there during her first visit, this time Shaw found a warm gaze – something akin to admiration. She frowned and excused herself before hanging up, the poor secretary still mid-sentence – as she had been for the past eight minutes; Shaw had counted.

 

At the sound of the handset falling back in place, Caroline blinked and licked her lips absently, folding her hands on her knees as if an actress preparing for a scene. “You called, Detective?”

 

Outside, New York buzzed quietly, the sunshine relentlessly burning through Shaw’s shirt and reminding her of how small her part was in this strange mess she had stumbled into. Shaw had been thinking about Caroline’s case for days before she had finally called – and mostly, had spent hours pondering on how she wanted this to go down. She had, after all, very little problem with the fact that Caroline was more likely conning Lambert for his money.

 

What she did not appreciate, however, was being lied to.

 

“Yes, Mrs Lambert,” she emphasized the title almost rudely, searching Caroline’s face for a reaction.

 

She was rewarded with a sharp-toothed smile; “please,” Caroline asked in a tone very far from begging, “call me Caroline.”

 

Shaw shrugged, taking a seat behind her desk and opening up a drawer. There was no point in confronting her about the fact that _she_ was, in fact, neither Mrs Lambert or named Caroline. Shaw had dug around trying to find out more about her mysterious client with no luck, and had settled on another strategy to find answers. “I don’t have good news,” she warned, taking out a file from her desk.

 

Caroline pretended to be worried, turning her face into a frown and biting her lower lip. Theatrics, really, but two could play at this game.

 

“Here,” Shaw announced with little care, sliding the file across the desk before leaning back in her chair with contempt.

 

In the folder, Caroline found a dozen pictures of Lambert with his wife, and sifted through them under Shaw’s scrutinising gaze. Caroline’s tight lips straightened at the sight and Shaw wondered how much of it was a deception, and how much was truly frustration. This obviously hadn’t been what Caroline had expected from her, and the more Caroline was upset, the more Shaw was convinced that the object of her irritation wasn’t the picture.

 

She would have allowed herself a smug grin, if she didn’t want to blow her whole plan wide open.

 

Instead, she focused on hitting the nail; “it seems your husband is having an affair after all.” The insistence brought traces of disappointment on Caroline’s face; shadows really, but Shaw took note of it anyway.

 

For a minute, she wondered if Caroline was going to surrender and tell her the truth about who she was and why she had come to see her. There was something odd in the silence filling Shaw’s office – despite the noise coming from the street. It was heavy, like something invisible was tipping the scales or like something had just been set in motion, but Shaw couldn’t know what it was. All she could do was wait, and see what Caroline’s next move would be.

 

Her lips tightened in a line, Caroline closed the folder, the photographs now hidden from sight. “Is that all you found, Detective?”

 

The tone was strangely accusing, filled with distrust, but Shaw held Caroline’s cold gaze. “That’s all I found.”

 

Caroline took a sharp breath and blinked twice; it looked to Shaw like cracks through her mask, like little embrasures she wanted to burst open. Then her face softened, eyes falling to the floor. “Very well,” she breathed out with a saddened voice. When her gaze returned to Shaw, it was filled with tears, jaw tensed as if trying to remain proud. Shaw wanted to roll her eyes at the faked sentiments, but she had to admit the role was well played. “I trust you’ll stay away from my personal life from now on?”

 

Again, it sounded like an accusation, and Shaw raised an eyebrow. “I don’t spy on people for fun,” she groaned. Caroline’s eyes twitched with a glint of malice as she opened her mouth to say something. For a second or two, Shaw was convinced Caroline was about to insult her – or, strangely enough, flirt, – but instead she shook her head. The spark vanished from her eyes, and the tension that had built up in the room disappeared.

 

Caroline rose to her feet, dropping the file on Shaw’s desk, disdain mixed with frustration on her face. “Thank you,” she breathed out in irritation before she went for the door, barely paying Shaw another glance.

 

As the door closed behind her Shaw kept her eyes on the file and how it stayed there, half of it dangling dangerously above the floor. No betrayed women would ever leave those behind – but Shaw hadn’t called Caroline here to have more proof that she wasn’t who she said she was.

 

No, Shaw had asked her to come down to her office for another purpose entirely, and it sat oddly in her gut – a mixture of excitement and the strange feeling of crossing over a line. Shaw rarely had second thoughts about her actions; she did what she thought was best, disregarding whether it was considered moral or even legal. This, however, she had never done before; working a case she was not paid for.

 

Of course every now and then, she’d agree to help Carter with a case without charge – some off-the-books mission Carter had set for herself; another charity case Shaw cared little for, if not for the fact that Carter asked. This time however, it had nothing to do with helping anyone. It was something else entirely – something closer to solving puzzles.

 

Shaw had never cared much for puzzles; they were annoying more than anything. But this one... this one, she had to find answers for.

 

She grabbed the messenger bag she had hidden under her desk and followed Caroline out the door, quickly locking her office before running down the stairs. She reached the exterior of her building just in time to see Caroline pull out of a parking space across the street. Making sure she wasn’t noticed, Shaw went for her motorcycle, hidden in the alleyway, and followed.

 

Through midday traffic it was still easy to keep an eye on her, although Shaw hated driving this slow. It wasn’t long, however, before Caroline stopped down a boulevard and parked her vehicle again. This time, Shaw continued down the street, turning the corner and coming back through the alley, just in case Caroline had noticed the company.

 

Caroline seemed rather innocent as she stepped out of her car and walked down the street, and Shaw followed through the crowd at a distance, from the other side of the street. When she noticed where they were, and more precisely, which building Caroline had just entered, Shaw froze.

 

It was a sleazy motel that charged by the hour – Shaw had followed many men there before, too many to count really. It was a good thing in the sense that she knew exactly where to go if she wanted to keep an eye on Caroline, but somehow it set a dreadful feeling in her chest. She ignored the urge to leave and entered the motel anyway, five dollar bill already in hand. The concierge – not that this establishment really had one, he was a janitor more than a clerk – recognised her as she stepped through the threshold.

 

“Who is it this time?” he asked with a smirk, hand already out, waiting for his usual fee.

 

Shaw rolled her eyes at his eagerness, but he was a good man with a shitty job, and over time she had grown fond of him. “Lady that just walked in,” she informed him, slipping him the five dollars.

 

The clerk grinned. “Black dress?” he noted in appreciation. “She was sugar alright.”

 

Shrugging, Shaw waited for the room number as he checked his directory. It bothered her slightly that she hadn’t really noticed the dress – had been busy scrutinising Caroline’s face instead, searching for tells that she was lying; clues about who she really was.

 

Once she had the information she quickly left the building, heading towards its northern wall. There was an old factory there, with a small footbridge that allowed her to spy on the rooms with windows on that facade without being detected. Shaw made her way up there as she usually would, although something seemed to slow her steps – like she wasn’t sure she really wanted to go on with the investigation.

 

Stubborn, she ignored the weight in her chest and feet, and reached the bridge without a problem. There, she hid in her usual spot, finding the curtains to Caroline’s room closed. She breathed out – strangely relieved – only to be startled when they were drawn open seconds later.

 

Discarded was the black dress; Caroline looked outside the window of the fifth floor wearing nothing but silky underwear, and Shaw tried not to let her mind wander. She toyed with her camera instead, cheeks furiously red as Caroline’s gaze ran over the factory where Shaw was hiding. Not really worried about being discovered, Shaw still pushed herself further against the wall, making sure she remained out of sight.

 

It didn’t take long before the door of Caroline’s room opened, and Shaw had to pull out her binoculars in to see who exactly was meeting her in such a seedy place. She wasn’t all that surprised to find Lambert stepping in, the door barely closed behind him that he was already undoing his tie. Shaw felt her own jaw clenching in frustration over the sight of his grin, the way his eyes lurked on Caroline’s bare flesh like it was his to take.

 

She frowned for a moment – she really didn’t care about Caroline. Didn’t care about the way she lingered by the window, even with Lambert right there with her; like she knew she was being watched.

 

Shaw shivered at the thought, not unpleasantly. She focused on steadying her breathing when Lambert joined Caroline at the bay window, his coat and tie carelessly thrown on the bed behind them. He slipped his arm around Caroline’s waist and muttered something in her ear that had her smiling – with the distance, Shaw couldn’t tell whether it was earnest or not.

 

Something flared up in her gut when Lambert placed a kiss on Caroline’s neck; over the years Shaw had spied on many intimate moments without even so much as a blink, no matter how attractive the people involved. And yet she found herself with a dry mouth and frustration seeping in her every thought, some strange violence bubbling inside. An odd feeling like she wanted to protect Caroline from whatever was going on – despite the fact that Caroline seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself.

 

The more Shaw looked across the street, the more she felt like intruding.

 

Even more strangely, it was the first time she felt like she had been invited to watch – as if Caroline had opened the curtains only for her. As if, even as Lambert’s hands trekked on her bare skin, Caroline was seeking Shaw out, searching for her.

 

As her eyes prowled the warehouse where Shaw was hiding, again Shaw wondered what Caroline’s plan was. That she was conning Lambert in some way seemed obvious, but Shaw’s role in her machinations wasn’t clear – and Shaw hated being kept in the dark.

 

She blamed her anger on that, when Lambert spun Caroline around so quickly that Shaw barely had time to blink before she lost her view on Caroline’s face. A hand had sneaked all the way down to Caroline’s ass, toying with the fabric of her underwear and Shaw swallowed hard, fist closed. Her mind ran calculations on the fastest way to get to Caroline’s room; up the fire escape out back, but if the door was locked it would take longer. She tried to focus on the fact that Caroline obviously had planned for this; she had been the one renting the room, had invited Lambert over.

 

Yet there was something rushed in his movements, something violent in the way he pushed Caroline against the window – oddly possessive. Still, Caroline kissed him back almost fervently and Shaw grimaced, strangely sickened at the thought that she might get pleasure out of this part of the con. It wasn’t like Shaw had anything against sex for just what it was – she had, after all, had many partners over the years, even a few while she had her arrangement with Carter. No, what bothered her was how Lambert looked at Caroline, as if not seeing a person, as if looking at a toy that could be easily disposed of.

 

It wasn’t something she appreciated at all.

 

Therefore she was somewhat relieved when Lambert stepped out of the embrace, took one look outside the window and closed the curtains shot. Shaw waited a minute before she packed away her camera and binoculars, her heart beating loudly in her chest despite the lack of effort. She steadied her breathing as she climbed down from her hideout on the footbridge, now that she had no reason to stick around.

 

She was repulsed at the thought of waiting for Caroline and Lambert to be done, and so she went straight for her motorcycle, eager to set some distance between her and the motel. As she straddled her motorcycle, thinking of leaving the city to drive fast and far for a while, her thoughts returned the deal she had seen Lambert make in that alleyway, a few days back.

 

Clenching her jaw, she turned the key in the ignition, finding some comfort in the loud roar of the engine before she made her way downtown, towards the Decima club.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It didn’t take long for Shaw to find a way inside the empty club – the back door was easy enough to pick, and she allowed herself in without a sound. She wasn’t worried about finding anyone there; at two in the afternoon it was still too early for any member of the staff to be there.

 

She kept the lights turned off, walking around with just a flashlight to guide her footsteps, taking her time to explore every inch of the place. Quickly she found the backstage dressing rooms and then the stage, where she could see the rest of the empty bar – chairs and stools still neatly placed over the tables, waiting for someone to set the space. Shaw jumped down the stage to continue her exploration, thoroughly checking for any place to hide – _what_ , exactly, she wasn’t sure. Under the stage she found nothing but a bunch of spots and electrical cords and she carried on, checking behind the bar for good measure.

 

There wasn’t anything suspicious there either, but the door leading down to the basement showed promise. She opened it slowly, cringing as it whined on its hinges. Shaw waited a few seconds, expecting to have been heard if she wasn’t, in fact, alone. She heard no other sound and so she shrugged as she closed the door behind her, walking down the stairs carefully.

 

The darkness and silence added to the creepiness of the large room; stacks of beer cases and dusty cleaning equipment filled most of the space. Shaw looked around anyway, finding another room, smaller, but also filled with crates – unmarked. She was hesitating between opening one of them or sneaking her way back up when she heard footsteps above her head – she had company. The basement door creaked open and Shaw instinctively turned off her flashlight, hiding further into the darkness of the small room, holding onto her breath.

 

People walked down the stairs, blinding her momentarily as they switched the lights on. For once Shaw didn’t curse her height; carefully hidden behind a stack of crates, she listened. Four different pairs of shoes climbed down the staircase as she slowly returned her flashlight to her bag, pulling out her gun instead. Although she longed for some action, she stayed put.

 

“That was not a part the initial deal,” Shaw heard a voice say. Young and pretentious – although that might’ve just been because of the faint traces of a British accent – she immediately recognised it as Lambert’s.

 

“Things change,” an old man answered bluntly, almost with a groan.

 

From where she was hiding, Shaw couldn’t see much of what was going on, and she looked around to try and rectify the situation.

 

“I don’t think you fully appreciate my predicament, Colonel,” Lambert insisted; his usually charming voice now turned uptight and frustrated. Shaw frowned at the change from the demure attitude from earlier – she winced at the remembrance of that motel bedroom – and this irritated stance.

 

Moving slowly through the shadows, Shaw managed to get closer to the other storage room, enough to get a quick look at the men that had came down here with Lambert. Perhaps ‘Colonel’ was simply a nickname, but Shaw doubted it; the three men were entirely different than the two thugs from the alley. Short and neat haircut, straight backs, clenched jaws... Shaw would’ve bet everything she owned that those three were military. She had been around soldiers enough that even without a uniform, she could easily spot one.

 

A skill of the trade.

 

“The police are asking questions,” Lambert carried on as Shaw pulled out a mirror from her pocket, now resolute to have eyes on the conversation even though the reflection of the light could let her presence known. She angled it right and then stopped moving, eyes locked on what little she could see from what was happening in the next room.

 

The eldest of the men, the one Lambert had called ‘Colonel, stepped forward. “Let them ask,” he groaned in frustration, obviously used to people following orders without a word. “In the end, they’ll look away.”

 

The two other soldiers had remained in place on each side of the Colonel, as if protecting him from some invisible enemy. Clenched jaws and closed fists, they looked as prepared and focused as they were expected to be when standing at attention and Shaw wondered what they were doing here exactly. If they were on the job, despite the lack of uniform. They both held large black travel bags, not unlike the one Shaw had seen being exchanged in the alley, the other day.

 

Lambert shook his head in disagreement. “Not all of them,” he insisted. In his classy suit, it didn’t seem like he belonged in this dusty basement; just like the soldiers didn’t either. With their black cargo pants and t-shirt, they looked fit for the field. The Colonel, in his sweater vest, seemed oddly at his place amongst the crates of beers, as if he had been hiding in basements all his life.

 

Shaw grimaced – those high-ranking officers, hiding was all they knew.

 

The Colonel ignored Lambert’s concerns and waved his hand; immediately the two soldiers with him dropped the large bags on the ground before them.

 

“Really,” Lambert looked uncomfortable, as if the suit was keeping him too warm. “I must insist,” he repeated, a twinge of fear in his voice.

 

Shaking his head, the Colonel clearly had little care for his worries. “It’s for a good cause,” he opposed with a grave tone. He had the kind of low voice used to growling orders and Shaw curled her lips in distaste. He reminded her of another man, another high-ranking officer that disregarded his own soldiers, seeing them as pawns in some twisted game. “Our men are dying out there.”

 

The concern didn’t sound genuine one bit and Shaw repressed a sigh of annoyance. Instead, she focused on the two soldiers with him; one of them, the taller one, had frowned at the choice of words. She wondered what was behind all this; what the Colonel had meant exactly.

 

There was a shift in the room, as if some invisible tension was building up. It wasn’t unlike the way the air changed quickly before a thunderstorm. _Or an air strike_ , Shaw thought, her mind returning to that field in Austria, that muddy meadow that had turned into a graveyard in a matter of seconds.

 

But that was a long time ago, and the ghosts buried there hadn’t followed her across the ocean.

 

“A noble cause,” Lambert sneered, obviously growing tired of this discussion; “winning wars by buying narcotics.”

 

Shaw frowned; even though this confirmed that they were truly soldiers, it sparked so many questions that she nearly had a headache already. The war against the Viets had been going on a while, and although Shaw wasn’t trying to keep up with the news, she knew enough to guess that it wasn’t going well.

 

In fact, the American forces were losing.

 

The Colonel shook his head with a mixture of disappointment and contempt. “Wars are not won by noble people, my dear Jeremy.”

 

What happened next went on so fast that for a second Shaw wondered if any of it had been real.

 

 “Well,” Lambert’s demeanor changed in a matter of seconds, “I am so glad you agree.” He flashed a cocky smile before he pulled out a gun from the inside pocket of his suit. He nodded ever so slightly before he raised the weapon, and shot the taller soldier.

 

One bullet to the head was all it took. He fell backwards, limp body hitting the ground before the Colonel and the other soldier could even have time to react.

 

Blinking, the detonation buzzed uncomfortably in Shaw’s ears as she heard threats and protests directed towards Lambert, who shrugged as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just killed a man in cold blood, in the basement of his own club. Lambert returned his gun to its holster, ignoring the two revolvers now pointed at him and threatening his life.

 

“He had too many doubts,” Lambert carelessly explained.

 

The Colonel raised a hand to quiet the other soldier, and frowned. “I told you we would take care of the problem,” he gazed at the dead body bleeding out beside him. The Colonel sighed as if it was a nuisance; “he’s one of us.”

 

Putting away his own weapon, the Colonel glanced at the remaining soldier, who did the same – although reluctantly, Shaw noted. She tried not to let her eyes wander on the young man lying on the floor, a red streak of blood slowly turning into a pool around his head.

 

A pitiful halo.

 

But Lambert laughed. “You army boys never learn,” he shook his head as if the others hadn’t gotten his joke yet. “There is no us.”

 

It took them an hour to dispose of the body and clean the room, and by then the stink of the basement mixed with bleach had seeped into Shaw’s clothes, making it impossible to breathe without thinking about the blood they had washed.

 

On the way home, Shaw’s mind was crowded with two ghosts she hadn’t thought about in quite some time. They didn’t leave until she showered, the hot water burning the skin as she washed away the remnants of the basement’s shadows.

 

 

* * *

 

 

No matter how she tossed and turn, Shaw couldn’t find a comfortable position. Lying in bed awake she stared at the ceiling until she couldn’t anymore, and with a sigh of irritation, she forced herself to get up.

 

Somehow, she couldn’t stop thinking about that soldier gunned down in his own country, his body lying on the dusty floor of a dirty basement. Shaw couldn’t make heads or tails out of it, couldn’t figure out what was going on exactly; just that it all seemed to tie itself around the Decima club and Lambert. She remembered Carter’s warning to stay away from it, but somehow it was too late.

 

It wasn’t something she could simply forget, not with the ghosts still haunting her. It was unfinished business, now.

 

Something she had to take care of.

 

She had never liked being kept in the dark, and was even less comfortable with the idea that Caroline – the name tugged at the back of her mind, a reminder of how little information she had on the damn woman – knew way more about this situation than she did. It bothered her that Caroline was one step ahead of her, and was most certainly tangled with Lambert’s operations. That it was all mixed with the U.S. Army somehow promised that nothing good would come out of this.

 

Instead of going back to bed, Shaw settled on going out to clear her mind. She put on a dress and some heels, her loose hair so very different from her usual business attire. She grabbed a purse instead of her messenger bag and left the office with the strange feeling that she had forgotten something behind or let the oven on. Instead of focusing on the feeling she hopped into a taxi, and offered the address of the Decima club.

 

The bar’s atmosphere at night was so very different than the cold, ghostly ambiance of earlier that Shaw almost forgot a man had lost his life here only hours before. She picked one of the rare empty tables and ignored the looks sent her way, eyes gazing over the crowd, for once uncertain of what she wanted. Here and there she noticed men and women that grabbed her attention, but none of them long enough for her to make a move. Instead, she asked for a glass of whisky – neat – and sighed in annoyance.

 

Once the drink had been paid and the waitress thanked, Shaw tried to push down the disappointment at not finding Lambert amongst the crowd.

 

It wasn’t very surprising that he would be elsewhere tonight, what with the events of the afternoon still quite fresh. Yet Shaw had hoped, somehow, that tonight would help her solve this mystery around the club, and what was going on exactly.

 

Her frustration was short lived, however. Soon, a man in a peacock suit appeared on stage, announcing the last number of the night. Shaw found her eyes dragged towards the main scene, where a faint full yellow light pooled over an empty bar stool. Before Shaw could decide to ignore the performance, the singer appeared on stage, grabbing the whole of her attention.

 

The maitre de soiree had called her Veronica Sinclair, but Shaw knew her as Caroline. It barely looked like the same woman, however, when she started singing; a sad, low-key voice that reminded Shaw of the melancholy of the trenches – not that her and Cole had spent much time in them, back then. But it had the same severity, the same resignation. The same pain.

 

“ _Ne me quitte pas_ ,” she sang over the piano’s slow notes, and the room turned quiet. As if hypnotised, most eyes turned towards the stage, drinks forgotten as Veronica went on, “ _il faut oublier, tout peut s’oublier._ ”

 

Focused on the warm and slow rhythm, Shaw found herself almost forgetting to breathe. She had seen Caroline – or was it Veronica? – in revealing dresses and wearing nothing but underwear, and yet it seemed as if now she was more bare than she had been before. Strangely exposed in front of a crowd that had eyes only for her, and Shaw cursed her little knowledge of French for not understanding what the song was about. She grasped a few words her mother had taught her, but it wasn’t enough. All she could tell was that it was a love song, one of hurt and sadness, and above all, one of loss.

 

She wondered who Veronica was singing for – and cursed herself for even questioning it when her eyes fell on Shaw.

 

“ _Je creuserai la terre jusqu’après ma mort pour couvrir ton corps d’or, et de lumière_ ,” she crooned, her gaze locking in one place even though Shaw wasn’t certain she could see her through the darkness of the club and with those spots lighting up the stage. And yet Veronica stared directly at her, like nothing else existed around them.

 

It made Shaw uncomfortable, as if the heat had been cranked up or as if those spots were on her now. Veronica’s eyes, burning and sad, watered a little more with every “ _ne me quitte pas_ ”, the repetition followed by the melancholic melody of the piano. It wasn’t that Veronica’s voice was extraordinarily beautiful; it was pleasing, but that wasn’t why she had captivated her audience so easily.

 

It was her presence, as if she was a flame burning on stage, slowly and painfully, and Shaw – who usually had little interest in music – couldn’t take her eyes and ears off her, as if in the moment it took to blink, Veronica might fade away.

 

Long forgotten was the whisky on Shaw’s table; all that remained was Veronica’s drowning grief. There was something else as well, haunting those eyes. Something Shaw had seen in Cole’s gaze as well, all those years before, and then later in her mother’s, at her father’s funeral.

 

Regret – no, guilt.

 

With the loss and the sadness, it all mixed together like the smoke that filled the room and dimmed the lights. Like it choked all of them into silence.

 

That was until the song ended – Shaw was almost startled when the crowd started clapping loudly, some men whistling and others cheering loudly. She blinked as if coming out of a trance, her hands still on her table, unmoving. Veronica hadn’t taken her eyes off her, even as she bowed in front of the crowed. When Shaw downed her whisky in one shot, Veronica finally looked away, waving at the audience almost timidly before leaving the stage.

 

The maitre de soiree thanked Veronica Sinclair for her performance, calling her a rising star, directly from Paris, France. In a matter of seconds frustration built up in Shaw’s gut – it hadn’t been _the real_ Veronica there on stage and nothing about this woman added up. What she had just felt as earnest was just a part of another alias, just as fake as Caroline had been and Shaw was angry to have fallen for it even for a second.

 

She shook her head and left her table, irritation flowing through her tensed muscles. Shaw remembered well where the backstage dressing rooms were and it didn’t take her long to find them again. Even less to fool the only security guard there to let her through – she was almost disappointed not to have to pick up a fight or incapacitate him. She closed her fist and pictured hitting Veronica instead, for playing so many little games, for toying with her as if Shaw was nothing but a pawn in her game of chess.

 

And perhaps, she really was.

 

Even now, as she knocked on the dressing room door loudly, perhaps Shaw was doing exactly what was expected of her, and she hated that dreadful feeling. That impression that she had no choice in the matter.

 

The door was surprisingly unlocked and Shaw let herself in, instead of waiting in the corridor where anyone competent might end up wondering what she was doing there. She slipped into the dressing room just in time to see Veronica changing into another dress – this one shorter than the long, dark purple dress she had wore on stage – less fancy and bright red, it was still quite revealing. Shaw blinked at Veronica’s smug smile, looking at her through the reflection in the mirror.

 

“Hello, _Veronica_ ,” Shaw stepped into the room, and refused to move when Veronica walked past her to close the door. She took in the perfume – same as the one she had when she came into her office with another name – and waited.

 

“I apologise for the deception,” Veronica started, talking smoothly as she walked around Shaw to return in front of her, “but I had my reasons.”

 

Shaw glared at her, unconvinced. Con artists were all in it for the money and nothing else, and therefore Shaw had no compassion for the mess they got themselves in – no matter how pretty they looked in a red dress.

 

“My life is in danger,” Veronica pouted more than she explained, and Shaw crossed her arms, already weary of the conversation. “I’ve seen and heard things here...”

 

Veronica shook her head and turned around, sitting at her make-up station to fix her lipstick. Yet through the reflection Shaw noticed her wiping a tear that had pearled at the corner of her eye, and once again she wondered if the person on stage had been Veronica, Caroline, or someone else entirely. Someone new; and real.

 

“I thought if you could find me some proof,” Veronica continued, adding blush to her cheeks as her eyes roamed Shaw’s body, “then I would have something against them.”

 

Uncomfortable under such a scrutinising gaze, Shaw shrugged. “If you’re worried they want to kill you, just go to the police.”

 

Veronica sneered; “the police?” She chuckled as if Shaw made no sense whatsoever, “what are they gonna do? I trust them less than I trust these crooks.”

 

After what Shaw had seen in the alley the other day, and the murder of the soldier she had witnessed earlier this afternoon, she couldn’t blame Veronica for her distrust. Shaw herself had little confidence in the authorities’ capacity at stopping crimes or preventing them, and the thought of authority still left a bitter taste in her mouth; too many ghosts by her side. She remembered almost painfully the soldier gunned down in front of her eyes and how she hadn’t been able to do anything to help. How she hadn’t protected him from that bullet coming from him, just like she had been helpless to save Cole, all those years ago, or even her father, not long after.

 

“I need help,” Veronica admitted in a low voice. She turned around and reached out to Shaw, resting a hand on her forearm, fingers insisting. “I need _your_ help.”

 

“Why would you trust me?” Shaw asked. She had meant it threatening but it sounded like an honest question instead, and Shaw blamed her ghosts for her weakness. She shouldn’t care about Veronica and whatever happened to her because of her ridiculous idea to con a man with as much money and connections as Lambert was. And yet here she was, halfway across town in a club she would’ve never set foot in before, questioning her as if it meant something.

 

Veronica shrugged, rising from her seat with a strange look in her eyes. “Maybe I’m touched you came here for me,” she smiled. Veronica was warm and oh so close, and for a moment – perhaps because of the whisky still burning in her gut – Shaw thought Veronica was about to lean in to kiss her, but nothing happened. After a few seconds of stilled silence she cleared her throat awkwardly.

 

“I came here to have a drink,” Shaw protested, but it was a poor excuse and she knew it. There were dozens of bars and clubs closer to her apartment, and by now it made no doubt to her that Veronica was quite aware of that fact.

 

“You’re intrigued,” Veronica suggested with a husky voice, and despite the flirtatious tone, for once she sounded honest.

 

Shaw frowned, uncertain of what to do with this new persona. “Annoyed, more like.”

 

Veronica smirked, blinking, although poorly. “Same difference.”

 

This time, Veronica leaned in, and Shaw didn’t blink, her gaze falling on Veronica’s lips, as fascinated as she had been only moments before, during the song. She could feel Veronica’s breath falling on her skin, warm and tickling, slightly irritating when she whispered, “so are you going to help me, Detective?”

 

“I’m gonna give you advice,” Shaw replied instead, swallowing hard. Even though part of her wanted to bridge the gap and kiss her, she couldn’t stop feeling smug at the disappointment that slowly appeared on Veronica’s face. “Get the hell out of town, and don’t ever come back.”

 

Shaw turned around then, leaving the dressing room without another word. As she walked past the security guard she smiled at him again, this time more earnestly. She crossed through the bar ignoring the few men who tried to strike up conversation, cursing the heels that were slowing her down, and the revealing dress that she had picked to come here, that had Veronica ogling over her.

 

Outside the night had gotten colder and Shaw thought about hailing a taxi, but somehow felt the walk would do her better. She still felt that burning desire inside, her thoughts coming back to Veronica and the way her warmth had made Shaw want to forget that the rest of the world ever existed. The way her eyes had gleamed at the idea that Shaw might give in, and kiss her right there.

 

A walk in the cold would do her good, right about now.

 

It was a decision that she came to regret only seconds later, when a chloroform rag was shoved on her mouth and nose, a strong arm pressing hurtfully against her stomach, keeping her in place. She lost consciousness as a second man appeared in front of her, and Shaw silently cursed Veronica for all her trouble.

 

A shot went off in the night, but Shaw barely registered it, busy as she was, thinking that all in all, she really hadn’t been paid enough for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the lyrics of _Ne me quitte pas_ that Root sang, loosely translated.
> 
>  _Ne me quitte pas, il faut oublier tout peut s'oublier_ means _Don’t leave me, you have to forget, everything can be forgotten_  
>  _Je creuserai la terre jusqu'après ma mort pour couvrir ton corps d'or et de lumière_ means _I will work the earth even after my death to cover your body in gold and light_
> 
> If you want to listen to it, here's [the link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pb-Jj9g7-Q) to Sarah Bettens' cover of it.


	4. 1943

There was a kind of stillness that seemed to stiffen the air at four am, just before the sun came up. Quietness that swooped in as most people were asleep, as if for a few hours, the world was at peace. With her rifle next to her sleeping bag, Sameen wasn’t duped, though. She and Cole could never forget the stakes; the weight of the war sticking with them like the constant pain in their calves. Even as they trekked far from any major city, something in the air always reminded them of the scars the war was leaving on Austria’s landscape.

 

“One thing for sure,” Cole’s breaths created fog in the early morning, his reddened hands working fast. “You aren’t Rosie.”

 

Sameen shook her head. She would’ve laughed if the cold and humidity hadn’t caught in her clothes, making her uncomfortable and feeling ill. “If she’s your only example of a girl, I’m sad for you.”

 

Cole chuckled as he rolled up his sleeping bag into a ball, sniffing like he had been ever since they had step foot in this country. The weather here in the mountains was so very different from home; it was harsh and windy as if protesting against their presence here.  But despite the growing exhaustion, they had a mission, and they would not fail it.

 

“And here I thought you didn’t have a heart,” Cole joked.

 

As Sameen pulled the tent’s poles from the ground they worked in silence, fingers quickly turning numb with the cold. The night had been just as short as all others before, and there were no hot showers in the near future. They had to move fast before the sun came up, no matter how stiff their muscles felt in the early hours. Ever since the plane had dropped them in enemy territory, there had been little sleep and no comforts, but they had been ready for it.

 

It was only the two of them here, with limited rations and ammunitions, and a sniper rifle. They had been given a map; eight red dots that showed the radio towers they had to take down in a fortnight.

 

They had already managed to destroy three, and were on their way to the fourth. With every one of them, the risk of being discovered increased significantly and so they had started trekking through woods instead of the main road. Sameen had no problem with that – Cole, however, was less experienced in the matter. Outdoor activities, it seemed, had never been a part of his life before the army. He hadn’t said anything, of course, but Sameen could see it in the way he moved between trees, the way he glanced at the sky as if always fearing a storm. The way his hands hesitated when pegging the tent down. Sameen almost wished they could make fires, only to laugh at his expense when he manage to create a flame.

 

They quickly finished packing in silence before pulling out the compass, setting course towards the south. If they were right about their coordinates, it would take another day to reach the next radio tower. Their feet hurt in their boots and their backs cried out in pain, but still they marched ahead, ignoring the exhaustion and the physical pain. The feeling that the muscles of their calves was tearing apart from the bones.

 

“Never went camping as a kid, did you?” Sameen mocked Cole openly when she sensed his spirits lowering, his feet dragging on the ground.

 

When he didn’t answer she shoved her elbow in his side, making him lose balance for a second or two.

 

Cole groaned. “I was never really that kind of kid,” he agreed anyway, if only so that Sameen would stop pushing him into trees.

 

“Yeah, I could tell you were a nerd,” Sameen reiterated, a smug grin on her face.

 

“I bet you were a Camp Fire Girl or something,” Cole complained, rolling his eyes. “That also makes you a nerd, just so we’re clear.”

 

Sameen frowned. “No it doesn’t,” she glared at Cole when he tried to push her off the track with no success.

 

“Fine,” Cole sighed. He waited a few seconds before he added, a wicked grin on his lips; “a freak then.”

 

Sameen had been called a freak often in her life, and she had broken noses for less than that. But Cole had taken a liking to affectionately call her that, and although it annoyed her deeply, she let it be. It was one of those things she just shrugged on, without really knowing why. Cole had a strange softness to him, a certain naivety that she wanted to preserve, somehow.

 

She hadn’t met a lot of people that didn’t bother her about who she was – most of them asked questions, demanded answers. Wondered why she was so different, and cold, why she lacked emotions. Cole had never asked anything; he had mocked and teased, had treated her like he had known her all her life, and somehow that just made it easier not to be angry with him all the time.

 

Sameen groaned for good measure anyway, stepping forward to set the rhythm; when Cole led they always went slower, talked more. Although she didn’t hate his company as much as she usually loathed anyone else’s, it was still annoying to hear him go on and on about his four older brothers who had all got themselves important jobs and families, while he had ended up here. Trekking in the woods at four in the morning, with muddy boots and a dirty uniform, and no shower in sight for days, most likely weeks.

 

While his brothers had swings in their backyards and grocery lists to worry about, Cole had _this_. His name in the lottery, one he had all hopes to lose, and yet won on the first try.

 

 _Bad luck Cole_ , they called him.

 

Sameen hadn’t really wanted to be a soldier either, but she hadn’t told that to Cole, and didn’t plan on it either. She had wanted to be a doctor her whole life, actually, but in these times her country needed soldiers more than it needed healers. In the end, she was glad to be here fighting and doing something instead of being stuck home, tending to a victory garden with her mother.

 

That just wasn’t her style. Besides, she couldn’t let her father go overseas for a second war and not follow.

 

But Cole’s family didn’t know war as well as hers did; he came from a family of lawyers and doctors who had never seen the front.  He had spent his life so far tinkering with tech, deconstructing radios and putting them back together for the fun of it. And he was good, too; just a few days before, Sameen had gotten a bullet in hers and Cole had managed to salvage parts and turn it into a one-way radio – she could hear Cole, but couldn’t respond. It was better than nothing, and it had shown Sameen why, exactly, Cole had been selected for the same sharpshooting training she had been. Despite his lack of physical abilities, he had a keen mind, calculated the odds with a cool head; Cole was a brilliant kid.

 

Sameen could appreciate having a partner like him. He had skills she hadn’t, and that completed hers in a way.

 

But she appreciated him more when he shut up.

 

“So,” he tried to make dull conversation, “you got someone waiting for you back home?”

 

“A mother,” she replied without looking back.

 

After a few seconds, she heard Cole laugh nervously. “You know that’s not what I was asking,” he insisted.

 

Most soldiers talked about having a lover back home, Sameen had noticed, but she didn’t. She had tried and failed at relationships, and it seemed to her completely insane to have someone waiting on her to return, anyway. She would never wait for anyone either; it just seemed pointless and ridiculous.

 

“I’m not that kind a girl,” it was a warning more than an answer, and Cole hummed quietly. She waited a few minutes before she rolled her eyes, slightly hating herself for continuing the conversation, but Cole always slowed down when they weren’t talking. “You got a Rosie?”

 

Cole frowned. “What?”

 

“At home,” she explained, sighing. The one time she was trying to keep up with the conversation, and he wasn’t paying attention. “You got a girl?”

 

“Ah,” he stepped a bit faster, finally joining her rhythm instead of gazing at everything like a tourist. “I had someone in mind,” he nodded.

 

Sameen turned around to smirk. “Well look at that,” she teased as his cheeks reddened, and this time, not because of the cold morning air, “Cole the heartbreaker.”

 

Cole shook his head. “She’s probably not gonna wait for me,” he insisted, a minute later.

 

“Send her letters about your fine time in Austria,” Sameen mocked him, and stopped suddenly. There were voices coming towards them and they both quickly dropped down on the ground, hearts racing with adrenaline.

 

The conversation continued over their heads as the two German soldiers patrolled the area, talking and joking like there was no danger. So deep in their territory, the soldiers didn’t expect an attack. It was after all incredibly risky; if Sameen and Cole were taken prisoners, they could expect torture; were they to die, their families would ever see their bodies again.

 

One wrong step and their lives could end here, and the thought didn’t really bother Sameen. However, under the pale light of the fading moon, she saw Cole’s alarm, the trembling of his fingers and the cold look in his eyes. He was terrified of disappearing here, of never going back, and maybe that was why he kept going on and on about ‘back home’. For fear he would never see it again.

 

When the voices were finally gone, she signaled for them to move again, in silence this time. Cole followed without a word as they both trekked a bit more slowly, attentive to any sound that might come from the woods. Sameen paid even more attention to the shadows, thinking of the look on Cole’s face, and how disoriented he was. Cole was a good soldier, a brilliant man, but he wasn’t made for this life. Wasn’t made for the mud and the woods, the fear and the blood.

 

She promised herself; no matter what, she would make sure that Cole would make it home alive.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Even though she wasn’t one to chat with her colleagues, Sam had heard rumors going around Arlington Hall, echoing in its endless corridors. The air warmed up with the buzzing of excitement as every other cryptanalyst exchanged the few details they had found out about the new project that was recruiting.

 

From what little she had eavesdropped on, Sam was hoping she could join, so that she could move onto more interesting work. Decoding the PURPLE machine’s transmissions had been a challenge at first, but these days, she was mostly bored.

 

Two years of decoding the same patterns, of searching for the same information. More than seven hundred days of the same speech about how their work was saving lives out there – as if the news about the war weren’t everywhere around them when they did leave Arlington Hall.

 

More and more, Sam saw Arlington as the dreadful school it no doubt had been before; just a fancy name for another prison. A job she could never quit, anyway – that much was starting to be clear. When she had started here, she had quickly forgotten about the armed soldiers stationed here and there. Hadn’t had a second thought about that waver of confidentiality. About all those talks of treason, if the wrong information ever got out.

 

Of course the few times she had noticed, she had thought of it in an exotic manner; it was new, and strange, and somehow it made her feel important. Now that she was having her third bad coffee, and going through a second pile of paperwork, the feeling was quite foreign.

 

“Ms Groves,” Finch stopped in front of her desk with a worried look. He hadn’t switched to using Root, even though most of her colleagues had, and it was starting to bother her more than she would care to admit. _Ms Groves_ did not belong in Arlington Hall – it was her mother’s name; Bishop’s way of mocking the fact that she had never married. _Ms Groves_ was buried in Texas, and had been for a very long time.

 

With his somber look, he didn’t have to add anything. Sam closed the files she had been working on, locked the sensitive information in a drawer and then followed him to his office down the corridor. It had been, years before, the principal’s office, and Sam had to admit that being brought there always made her feel like she was eight again, and being called a liar because she had tried to imitate her mother’s signature on a forged letter explaining why she had been missing school.

 

“Close the door,” he instructed.

 

She rolled her eyes. Of course she would close the door. Finch still treated her like the kid that had interrupted his lecture and she never knew what she wanted; his respect, or to piss him off.

 

“How is your Russian, Ms Groves?”

 

She blinked. Ever since the Soviet Nation had joined the Allies she had started studying Russian, in the hopes to be sent out there one day. She had hopes to see the world, and yet had ended up behind a desk.

 

“Better every day,” she answered. Learning on her own wasn’t ideal, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She had no time to enroll in classes, and had no wish to ask for anyone’s help, anyway.

 

Finch pointed towards the chair and she sat down. He seemed somber and official, darker than the usual days where he only reminded her of how she ought to take her job more seriously – how she ought to understand the ramifications of the work they were doing. So many boring lectures that Sam had little care for; but today seemed different.

 

“They want you to join the Venona Project,” Finch started. Already it told Sam more than she wanted to know; Finch disapproved of their choice.

 

Well, _now_ she was intrigued. “The Soviets are our allies,” she frowned. Why would the Soviets send encrypted messages to their troops on the front and not share that information with the rest of the forces?

 

“This isn’t quite the same work,” Finch pushed his glasses up his nose. “By now I’m sure you heard of the Doll Woman?”

 

It had been the only thing worth coming to work; hearing the latest about Elisabeth Friedman’s building case against the Doll woman – a Japanese spy who sent out letters referring to warships as “dolls” and talking about fishnets and balloons to describe coastal defenses. Friedman had been working with the FBI on this case for months, and Sam found the whole case quite impressive.

 

It was interesting to extend this puzzle game to more than just codes, letters and numbers, but to humans as well. To study someone’s behavior, the way they phrased and acted and find what they were made of.

 

“Spies, Harry?” Sam grinned.

 

He grimaced at the familiarity. “Our Soviet allies seem to be interested in the Manhattan project.”

 

Sam didn’t have the clearance to know what that was, but she had poked around and found out by herself – which had prompted the conversations about responsibilities and ramifications of the job; dull speeches that she loathed.

 

“I’m guessing we don’t wanna share?”

 

Finch raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you can imagine, Ms Groves, the importance of keeping that research a secret.”

 

She understood. She kept secrets better than anyone; she had so many already. She never minded lying to hide something – what she did not appreciate was not knowing.

 

“Why me?”

 

Finch shrugged. “You’re an ideal candidate.”

 

But there was something bothering Finch; Sam could tell. “Why?”

 

There was a long sigh before Finch took off his glasses. “There is talk of sending someone in the field. Someone who wouldn’t raise suspicions. Who would know Russian, and would be able to decode the messages themselves, without having to relay information through here.”

 

Sam’s smile brightened. “When can I start?”

 

Finch shook his head. “I don’t think you realise the dangers of such a project,” he insisted, like she thought he would.

 

“It’s for my country, Harold,” Sam replied earnestly, although they both knew she had never been the patriotic kind. “It’s my duty.”

 

The Venona Project sounded like just the life she wanted to lead.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was raining, just like it had been for most days. It made it easier to hide from the German soldiers patrolling around the small camp – Sameen guessed this particular spot had around twenty armed men. A bigger target than any other on their list, but it was there nonetheless, and Sameen and Cole had no other choice.

 

To disable the tower meant to blow it up, but getting close enough to leave the dynamite would take time. They spent hours watching the guards’ rotation, trying to find a way in. Being far from civilization, the soldiers weren’t as strict and well-ordered as one would expect in a larger setting. That could easily be used at their advantage.

 

Cole noticed first that for an hour in their routine, two guards ended up watching over the lower entrance to the camp, instead of the usual three. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do; they still had three other towers to take down, and not a lot of time to do so. Besides, the foremost danger came from the snipers up in the tower, and there was no way to take them out without revealing their presence. Although Sameen might be able to take the shot, there was no way the second guard wouldn’t raise the alarm before she could kill him too.

 

Two against twenty weren’t odds they wanted to gamble with.

 

They waited until night came, the heavy showers of the day turning into a light drizzle. Shivering and exhausted they kept their eyes open, instincts still sharp despite everything.

 

When it was time, Cole gave her the signal.

 

She sneaked through the shadows, slowly making her way up to the first guard. Her boots slid in the mud and she hoped to be as quiet as possible as she walked up to him. He was a good six foot taller and she quickly hit his knee to make him fall forward before she brought the butt of her gun down on his head. She heard the cracking of his skull before he fell down head first and she pulled him closer to the wall, hoping the night would hide him long enough for her to complete her mission.

 

In the darkness, she looked to find Cole still waiting at the forest line, hiding in bushes. From here she couldn’t see him at all, but a little red dot appeared and disappeared. She waited – one meant she was good to go; two, she had to leave as quickly as she could. When no other signal came she continued, cursing once again the squishing of the mud under her boots.

 

The rest of the camp was asleep; there should be only one soldier left to deal with, not counting the two snipers up in the tower. Sameen hoped they hadn’t seen the signal, but if they had, she imagined they would’ve rang some kind of alarm by now. Therefore the quietness of the night was comforting, even though it did a poor job at hiding her at the moment. She could hear crickets nearby, and the quiet sound of the wind blowing over the camp like nothing was happening.

 

As if she wasn’t about to blow the whole place up, with all the dynamite jammed in her bag – she had left half of it with Cole as she usually did – and hoped they wouldn’t need much for the three other towers. They were running low on everything, it seemed, and there was no way they could get more ammunition or explosives while in the middle of Austria.

 

Sameen had started stealing from the soldiers she knocked out during their missions, grabbing whatever she could find. Cole always complained that it made their backpacks too heavy; that she was hoarding ammunitions for no reasons, but Sameen preferred to be prepared. She didn’t like going in without enough explosives to have quite the blowing up party.

 

She found the second soldier cleaning his gun, sitting down the stairs of the tower. For a moment she hesitated; there was no way around him but to face him directly. Hopefully, the element of surprise would be enough to give her the advantage, and with his hands busy holding the pieces of his gun, she might have a chance to knock him out before anyone noticed. Other than that, she might have to shoot him, but so close to the snipers, it was a risk she hoped she wouldn’t have to take.

 

Stepping in front of him, Sameen smirked; the guy blinked, obviously half awake in the dead of the night. Before he had time to move she had already punched him twice, and the third time was the charm. He fell down the stairs, the pieces of his gun spattered around him, and Sameen quickly returned the shadows from which she had emerged, hoping no one had heard the ruckus.

 

From where she stood so closely to the tower, there was no way she could see Cole’s signal, and so she only waited a few seconds. When she didn’t hear anything she went on with their plan, quickly and efficiently laying the dynamite around the tower. She was almost done when she heard footsteps beside her and she quickly pulled out her knife and pushed her assailant against the wall, the blade against the thin neck of their skin.

 

Cole stared back at her in the darkness, frightened eyes turning smug in the course of seconds.

 

“What the hell?” Sameen whispered in frustration. He wasn’t supposed to leave his post; he was supposed to remain at the edge of the forest and be her eyes.

 

“There’s a third guard doing the rounds around the camp,” Cole rushed, “we gotta go.”

 

She wasn’t done setting up the dynamite. “Should’ve told me over the radio,” Sameen muttered in protestation, already moving to finish her task.

 

“Didn’t want to reveal your position,” Cole replied.

 

She rolled her eyes. As if Cole running across the plain to reach her was safer. They were lucky they hadn’t been caught.

 

“Go,” Sameen ordered him, “I’ll finish this.”

 

Cole hesitated for a second, but over time he had learned to follow her orders without question. He left her promptly and she quickly focused on the explosive device, putting the dynamite on a timer. She had sixty seconds, and then this place would be destroyed.

 

As she turned around she saw Cole running through the darkness of the plain and almost at the edge of the forest. On her right, something caught her eye; the third guard had stopped making his round. She grabbed her radio to warn Cole, only to remember she couldn’t – it only worked one way, now.

 

Sameen pulled out her revolver, but the guard’s gun had already fired. She watched as Cole fell to the ground and into the mud. Before Sameen could move; Cole was standing up again. An odd sense of pride and relief rushed through her as he limped towards safety, and she wasted no time firing at the guard who had shot her partner. He dropped dead with one bullet and she started making her way back, only to see Cole falling down once again.

 

For a moment, she thought it was the mud. She thought he had slipped.

 

And then she remembered the snipers. Only then, strangely, she heard the shot as it reverberated on the nearby mountains.

 

Only then, she realised they wouldn’t make it out alive this time.

 

There had been a few close calls with the two previous towers, but nothing quite like this. Twenty Nazi soldiers, and Cole was wounded.

 

Maybe already dead.

 

She ran in a zig-zag pattern, feeling the bullets crossing the air right beside her head. Missing.

 

 

She ran until she reached that immobile drop of darkness on the ground. Cole. He was lying in the mud, his face on the ground, and Sameen already knew, but she had to check.

 

Not a lot of time to do so. She turned him around and pressed two fingers on his neck – the same one she had lightly cut, she realised then, with her blade. The thin layer of blood was warm and gluey under her fingers, but she couldn’t find a pulse.

 

“Dammit Cole,” she hissed when a bullet flew by her. From the camp, flashlights were running towards her, threatening to reach her too early.

 

There was no time. She grabbed Cole’s backpack and shoved it over hers, and checked one last time.

 

No pulse.

 

The tower blew up loudly in the night, giving her a few more seconds to say goodbye before she had to go. She pulled out her gun and shot him in the heart once again, just to be safe. There was no way they were taking him alive.

 

She made her way to the woods with yells and shots behind her, but she knew the terrain better than them. They had spent the war in their own territory, safe in the idea that no one would dare reach them. They had grown slow and lazy, but Sameen had done quite the opposite. She had spent weeks walking in this terrain, running inside those woods she was starting to feel like she knew by heart, no matter where she was on the map.

 

She headed towards the mountain where it would be easier to hide and pick out the remaining soldiers one by one, if a few of them got too eager.

 

For days she ran, from that tower to the next, killing every soldier in her path. Barely allowing herself the rest she set their camps on fire, fuming on rage, roaming the woods like a devil. Nothing stopped her along the way as she piled dead bodies behind her, but it wasn’t enough.

 

She didn’t stop until she had completed her mission, alone against all of Austria’s forces, but filled with an anger that seemed infinite. Only when she thought about Cole’s dead body she’d pause, and grimace.

 

It wasn’t guilt, she knew that. She didn’t do guilt. But it gnawed at her, that promise she had made to herself, that she would bring him home safe.

 

And if she had to burn all of Europe to rid herself of it, she would.


	5. 1959

Nausea crept up her throat while her head throbbed painfully, but Shaw did her best to stay still. Focused on steadying her breathing, she kept her eyes closed, and listened. There was something dripping in one corner of the room she was in, in the right corner behind her. She could sense that she wasn’t alone, but couldn’t tell whether it was one person or more. They were really quiet about it, too; the only thing betraying them was the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Apart from that, the air was damp and smelled horrible, like the room hadn’t been open or aerated in years.

 

As expected, she didn’t feel the light sting of sunshine on her skin; only the tight hold of ropes around her wrists.

 

Heavy footsteps came closer.

 

“She awake?” she heard a man ask another.

 

A sudden kick on the chair she was tied to forced Shaw to open her eyes in surprise. “She is now,” a tall, bald man in a police uniform grinned, staring down on her like she was some price he had just won. The second, short hair and a square jaw, wearing kakis and a black cargo pants, frowned.

 

“Took her long enough,” the younger one seemed almost worried. But quickly the look was replaced by a stone cold expression as he turned towards his colleague. “You can go. I’ll take care of this.”

 

The bald man left before Shaw had enough time to read his name tag – something that started with S, but she couldn’t tell for sure. The shorter one pulled himself a chair, and sat backwards on it, facing Shaw. Something tugged at her mind uncomfortably, until she realised; she had seen him before, in the Decima club’s basement that very same day.

 

If it was even the same day, Shaw realised; she had no way to know how long she had been out.

 

Under this light he looked more exhausted than threatening. She wondered how many times he had washed his hands since he had disposed of the body. If she would be sent to the same ditch once they would be done with her.

 

“First,” he cleared his throat, forearms resting on the back of the chair, “let me tell you, no one can hear you down here.”

 

Shaw looked around quickly; it seemed like a part of a sewer – no, a subway station. Like those small storage spaces where employees kept the cleaning equipment, only this one was empty, dirty and quiet like a tomb. In a corner she saw some garbage, empty beer bottles and an old blanket, and imagined the poor man that had been forced out of here when they brought her in – that was, if they hadn’t killed the guy, too.

 

“Do I look like a screamer?” Shaw raised an eyebrow, swallowing hard when another wave of nausea overtook her. _Damn chloroform_.

 

The man smiled; “you’re tough, uh?”

 

His piercing eyes were studying her quietly and Shaw did the same. Underneath all his bravado, he seemed strangely weary. By the way he sat, with his spine straight and not at all relaxed, Shaw guessed he wasn’t a civilian, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she waited, his eyes boring into his, challenging.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked, clenching his jaw.

 

Shaw raised an eyebrow at the question. Of course she hadn’t gone to the Decima club with anything that could identify her, but she had been seen around Veronica’s dressing room; it seemed they hadn’t questioned her. Or she hadn’t told her anything.

 

“Your name,” he insisted, towering her with all his height. But Shaw had been threatened by more dangerous men, had survived more dire situations. Hell, she had disobeyed army instructors scarier than him, once. Almost a lifetime ago. “You’re not going to tell me your name, are you?” he almost softened his tone.

 

It was a trick, a way to make him seem more familiar, more approachable. A cheap manipulation move at best.

 

“I’m a private person,” Shaw shrugged. The movement caused pain in her bounded wrists; a reminder that she had more important things to focus on than this would-be inquisitor.

 

“How long have you been working with Sinclair?” he leaned forward, his elbows on the back of the chair, facing Shaw.

 

She smirked. So they _had_ interrogated Veronica, and she hadn’t given her up. That warmed her chest pleasantly, but Shaw pinned it on the fact that whoever was holding her clearly had no idea what was going on – although, she had to admit with a grimace, neither did she.

 

“Don’t know the name,” she answered as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if she wasn’t struggling with the rope around her wrists, trying to loosen the knots.

 

The man shook his head, and ran a hand over his beard. “Was a marine,” he informed her; “you ain’t getting out of that chair, little girl.”

 

Anger boiled inside of her at the nickname, the urge to throw herself forward just to smash her skull against his and knock him out, but there would be no point. Even if she did manage to wipe that stupid grin off his face, she wouldn’t know more about how she got into this mess to begin with.

 

“So,” he cleared his throat and spit on the floor beside him, “I’ll ask again. How long have you been working with Sinclair?”

 

Shaw shook her head. “I’m not really a cabaret kind of gal,” she answered, and received a mean right hook for her efforts. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of a pained noise – her tongue ran over her lip, found some blood, and she laughed. “That all you got?”

 

He rose from his seat before two more punches landed on her cheeks; three others in her stomach. She wondered, with the sharp pain that stung through her lungs like a needle, if he had broken one of her ribs. But she could still breathe just fine, and she forced herself to relax as much as possible, letting the blows land on her without resistance.

 

“Sinclair,” the man insisted.

 

Shaw laughed. How ridiculous was it that she was being held here and beaten up, all for some dame she didn’t even know the name of. “What about her?”

 

He smirked at her as if to point out the lie, before he moved the chair to the side. The sound of it filled the small room for a moment, slow and irritating as metal scratched on cement. Circling around Shaw like a vulture, he repeated; “you’re working with her.”

 

“Not really, no,” Shaw replied, keeping her eyes on the ground. If she could only manage to get one wrist out of that knot, she’d be out in a matter of minutes. But that first part was easier said than done; short of breaking one of her thumbs.

 

“She shot one of our men when we came to get you,” the man informed her. Shaw hid her surprise, the warmth in her chest growing, strangely close to the quiet buzzing of her radio in her office. “What do you call that?”

 

Shaw smiled. “Being a good Samaritan?”

 

The man did not laugh. Instead, he moved towards one of the corners where Shaw could not see him, and reappeared with a blow torch. “I really did not want to come to this,” he breathed out like he was disappointed in her. Like she was forcing him to torture her.

 

She grinned even more; “I rather enjoy these kinds of things.” Her voice was low and still raspy from the chloroform, but Shaw noticed the surprise and confusion that flashed on the man’s face for a moment. “Well, I prefer when it’s done by a pretty face, but I guess you’ll do.”

 

He did not back down from her defiant stare. Instead, he walked closer, playing with the flame as if to taunt her.

 

“You, on the contrary,” Shaw continued, her heart racing at the thought of the pain a flame like that would inflict, “you don’t look like you’re having fun at all.”

 

The man sneered; “and you’re trying to appeal to what? My compassion?”

 

She was, but Shaw knew a soldier when she saw one. They didn’t like to be reminded of the heart beating in their chests. “Not really, no,” she lied. “I think you’ve done far worse than this.”

 

He looked confused, the blow torch still in hand but almost forgotten.

 

“It’s crazy the shit we can do,” Shaw seemingly confessed, “when we’re ready to die for our country.”

 

The man’s eyes clouded with darkness and Shaw knew she had hit the right spot. A soldier’s guilt was never far from the surface, and it wasn’t hard to break that shell, once it started to crack. “Only I wasn’t the one who died,” she confessed.

 

He looked away for a moment, just as Shaw breathed out; “what’s your name, soldier?”

 

It seemed to surprise him. “I’m the one asking the questions here,” he frowned, but there was hesitation there. It had unsettled him, the revelation that Shaw was a veteran as he most likely was. Or perhaps, and she didn’t like the thought, he was still on the Army’s payroll even now.

 

“We both know I’m gonna die in this place,” Shaw challenged with a short sigh, looking around like she was strangely at peace with the idea that this would be her last sight. Four cement walls holding her in with some garbage and that damn leak that wouldn’t stop. “So how about you light me one with that thing?”

 

She pointed towards the blow torch with her chin, and without a word he pulled out a cigarette pack from his pocket. He lighted one for her and she forced herself to take in some of the smoke, although the smell triggered her nausea once again, and reminded her of her father. It definitely wasn’t something she liked to think about, the way her father used to sit in the evening and smoke as he read the newspaper. The image was too foreign from Shaw’s life now; too far from anywhere she could’ve ended up, really.

 

“I’m Sam,” she offered him, more to escape her thoughts than anything else.

 

He nodded as he turned off the blow torch, and waited until she had pulled in a second draft of smoke before he took the cigarette away. “I’m Grice,” he spoke with a low voice, as if worried someone might hear.

 

She tried a smile. “I’d shake your hand, but an idiot tied me to a chair,” she joked and he shared the smile for a few seconds.

 

“Pretty shitty, uh?” he said when the silence between them became too heavy, too uncomfortable for him. “It’s such a mess.”

 

He shook his head like he couldn’t believe what was going on, just like he had for a minute or two, right after he had been ordered to dispose of his fellow soldier’s body, in that damn basement.

 

“The good ol’ U.S. of A. buying opium,” Shaw spoke aloud like it couldn’t be real, but the evidence kept piling up anyway.

 

“We’ve got to,” Grice answered before he pulled a draft from the lighted cigarette.

 

Shaw blinked at the smoke that lingered between them. “You been there?”

 

She didn’t need to specify; there was only one conflict on the news lately – one massive fight at the other end of the world, in places Shaw had never heard of before. Cities with names she doubted even one of those American soldiers could pronounce correctly. She remembered a time where she had hesitated at the thought of joining again, and shook her head.

 

“Yeah,” Grice confirmed, a dark look in his eyes. “We’re being massacred. There’s no way we can beat them without some help,” he confessed, a strange panic in his eyes, not very different than one Shaw had seen many times in her father’s look. He grimaced and shook his head, and it was gone. “Divide and conquer,” he added ominously, staring at the smoke of his cigarette disappearing in the air.

 

She had heard enough radio coverage to understand what he meant at that. The Army was offering weapons to warlords and guerillas in Indochina to favor a chaotic climate they could use to their advantage. It was ruthless and cruel; it was what war had become – or what it had always been, Shaw wondered for a moment.

 

“It’s to protect our guys,” Grice assured her, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. Shaw recognised what was clouding his eyes now – the same disappointment she had seen in her father’s gaze, all those years ago. The knowledge of just what humans could do to another, for money and power.

 

She didn’t feel that disillusionment, that exhaustion that seemed to slow every one of his movements. All she felt was angry.

 

Shaw twisted her forearm enough that her hands could more easily touch. She barely took a breath before she pushed one thumb with all of her strength, dislocating the digit. The pain seared all the way up to her elbow, wringing even in the shoulder as she pulled her limb out of the knot. The rope burned on her skin as she rushed out of her bonds, closing her unscathed hand into a fist. One well-placed right hook knocked Grice out, and he quickly fell to the floor like dead weight.

 

Despite being eager to leave, Shaw took the time to fix her thumb back into place, teeth gritting as she struggled to stay quiet against the groan that threatened to leave her lips. Once she was done she searched through Grice’s pockets for a weapon, but couldn’t find anything but a pocket knife. She absently wondered where hers had ended up, along with the rest of the money she had brought with her to the club.

 

Although her aching hand slowed her down, Shaw managed to tie up Grice’s wrists behind his back – in a tighter, more complicated knot than the one he had used on her. She smirked until she heard footsteps approaching, and then grabbed the blow torch before she hid just beside the door, waiting.

 

As soon as the stranger – the same bald police officer from before – passed the threshold, Shaw smashed the butt of the blow torch against the back of his head, bringing him down in one quick hit. He dropped his gun while he fell to the floor – a Colt, Shaw grimaced as she picked it up. Not exactly her weapon of choice, but it would have to do.

 

_Simmons_ , his uniform’s name tag said. Shaw made sure to remember it before she made her way out of the room, head’s still a bit groggy.

 

Passed the threshold she found a long, dark corridor, and settled on going towards the left, sure that Simmons had come from there.

 

It didn’t take long before she reached a functioning subway platform. She had initially planned to mix in with the crowd, but by the looks she was getting, there was no way she could travel anonymously. It reminded her of Grice’s punches and she ran the tip of her fingers across her face to find a cut still wet, and two or three bruises on her cheek, merging into one.

 

Her head seemingly pulsed with pain and she stopped poking at it, climbing the stairs and ignoring how short of breath she felt. Her ribs still winced in pain with every step and she nearly limped out of the station to be met with a darkened sky.

 

The fresh air of the night welcomed her, a cool breeze somehow relieving some of the pain and reviving her enough to go on. There was no telling when the sun would come up, but at least it was easier to flee in the shadows than in the light of dawn.

 

Shaw didn’t hesitate; recognising the corner street she had emerged at, she quickly headed home. There was no time to waste, and she really needed to find a mirror and look at that cut, and drop that aching hand of hers into a bucket of ice.

 

Some whisky would help too, now that the nausea had faded.

 

Her head hurt like it had been split in half, and with every footstep it seemed the pain increased slightly. Shaw clenched her jaw, forcing herself to breathe slower. In her current state, hailing a cab would only bring suspicions, and she didn’t like the thought that a driver, given the right incentive, might easily recall where he had dropped her off.

 

In less than an hour she was already a couple of blocks away from her apartment, the sky slowly turning into the vibrant dark blue that came just before sunrise. She sensed a presence behind her, following her like a shadow that she could barely notice, even in the stillness of dawn. She tightened her grip on the Colt before she spun around, aiming the barrel at the man’s head.

 

Nice suit, tensed jaw, warm eyes. “Would you mind putting that down?” he asked too politely for a man whose life wasn’t in his hands anymore.

 

Shaw shrugged. “Not my intention, no,” she admitted, taking a step forward.

 

The man in a suit didn’t move, didn’t even blink. “Do you always point a gun at people?” he questioned, slowly relaxing. As if he knew already that Shaw was not going to shoot him.

 

It was annoying.

 

“Just the ones who follow me around,” she grunted. “What do you want?”

 

The man smiled – well, he curled his lips slightly, and given his otherwise grave demeanor, Shaw guessed it was a smile. “My employer wants to talk to you.”

 

Another interested party, Shaw frowned. Even though this stranger also looked like military, he obviously wasn’t a part of whatever group had just abducted her. Things were getting complicated by the hour and she was starting to lose her footing in all these unknowns. She swallowed hard, ignoring the throbbing headache that threatened to knock her out, and sighed.

 

“Talking’s overrated,” she glared at him.

 

His suit alone must have cost twice her rent. “It’s about Veronica Sinclair,” he insisted.

 

That wasn’t a name Shaw wanted to think of at the moment, not for a decade in the least. And yet she found herself intrigued once again. “What about her?”

 

She could already feel where this conversation would bring her; closer to the truth, perhaps, but still deep within the maze. And most likely, she realised as an afterthought, closer to death.

 

Shaw thought about dropping her gun then, and walking home to sleep for a week, and forget the damn woman. But it nagged at her, the idea that Sinclair was in trouble, in way more trouble than anyone Shaw had dealt with before, and that without her, she would quite possibly die.

 

Not that Shaw would feel any guilt over that. But weirdly, she didn’t like the image of a pale, bloodied Caroline-Veronica-whatever her name was, thrown in a ditch somewhere.

 

“She’s not who she says she is,” the man in a suit replied.

 

Well that was old news.

 

Shaw repressed the urge to roll her eyes; with the headache, it just seemed like a bad idea. “And who is she now?”

 

The man in the suit nearly grinned this time. Frustration boiled inside Shaw, almost as hot as the bruises on her face. “Let me guess,” she groaned, “your _employer_ will tell me?”

 

With a nod and a glance at the gun, the man took a step back, an unspoken question lingering in the air. Shaw sighed before she lowered the Colt.

 

“I’m Reese,” he offered politely, but Shaw didn’t extend the courtesy of her name.

 

They remained quiet during the short walk it took to reach an eight stories high building under construction. Although Shaw eyed Reese suspiciously, the pain in her neck reminded her that there were many other ways to bring her here without her consent. Besides, he hadn’t tried to rid her of her weapon; in fact he continuously looked around as if protecting her from some unknown danger.

 

Just like the street it was on, the construction site seemed entirely empty. Shaw entered it as if entering enemy territory. Listening to every sound and scrutinising the shadows, she followed Reese up the stairs – cursing the pain every step jabbed into her ribs, and that still throbbed in her hand and face.

 

“Ms Shaw,” someone welcomed her from a dark corner, on the third floor.

 

So much for not giving Reese her name. “Detective,” she corrected with her title, despite it not being exactly legal.

 

Reese had stopped just past the threshold, evidently playing lookout while Shaw discussed with his employer.

 

A short man with glasses appeared from within the darkness, one hand on a cane. He smiled at her almost warmly. “We both know that isn’t entirely true, is it?”

 

Shaw shrugged. She didn’t like those people poking around her life, but she didn’t have anything to hide either. “So you know who I am,” Shaw nodded, one hand reaching for her gun. It wasn’t to threaten as much as it meant to remind them both that there was no time to play games – her patience was wearing thin.

 

“Oh,” the short man seemed to realise, “how rude of me.”

 

Shaw frowned; it certainly wasn’t the kind of welcome those other military guys had offered her. “My name is Harold Finch,” he offered his hand to shake, but Shaw only glared at the watch that peeked out of his shirt.

 

Some people really could afford the most expensive, useless stuff.

 

“You wanted to talk?” she forced her eyes to dig into his. Annoyed with all those shenanigans, she found her curiosity vanishing a little more every minute. She had wounds to heal, and no time to wait around while some rich white man played out his spy fantasies.

 

“You have befriended someone dangerous, Ms Shaw,” Finch scolded.

 

Shaw frowned at both the tone and the choice of words. “I wouldn’t say that,” she corrected. “A cabaret singer doesn’t scream danger to me,” she smirked. “And she’s not a friend.”

 

Finch had little reaction at that; the slightest rise of an eyebrow, and that was it. “She isn't who she says she is,” Finch repeated Reese's words, and Shaw’s impatience grew exponentially.

 

“Aren’t we all,” she breathed out, stepping back. No matter how many questions stormed in her mind, her anger was getting the best of her and she thought it best to leave now, before she spilled blood.

 

Once again, she wondered how she had gotten stuck in this mess to begin with. Only yesterday she was having a drink with Carter. She grimaced; perhaps she should’ve listened to her advice, and stayed out of this.

 

“Some of us are better liars than others,” Finch insisted behind her.

 

Shaw spun around quickly, immediately regretting it as pain stabbed her lungs. “Look, all this fancy talk,” she waved at the cryptic meeting place; “it’s really not doing it for me.”

 

Finch flinched slightly. “There are forces at work here, Ms Shaw,” he warned her cryptically, and her annoyance reached new levels. “Things you know nothing about, and from which you would do good to stay away.”

 

In the course of one day, Shaw had witnessed an execution, found yet another alias for a woman she still didn’t actually know, had gotten herself abducted and beaten up… she didn’t need any more warnings. She needed actual information, or to be left alone. Whatever this enigmatic meeting was about, she had little care for it.

 

She shrugged. “Well that’s fine then,” she groaned before she flashed a bitter smile. “Because I don’t care about any of this crap.”

 

It wasn’t exactly true; Shaw caught the lie as it escaped her lips. The more she advanced in this maze, the more she wondered what was at the end. Her mind wandered back to the dead soldier in Decima’s basement; to the frustration and despair in Grice’s eyes. She thought of that picture of her father; a young soldier fresh off the boat, fighting for what he believed was right.

 

Nothing about this was right.

 

As she left the building without another word, she remembered Carter’s pride in her uniform, her insistence that Shaw was doing _the good work_. Shaw couldn’t believe that; she didn’t have that noble instinct. She had nothing but survival and anger on her mind, but maybe this time, she tried to convince herself... Maybe this case could be different.

 

                                                          

* * *

 

 

Her pounding headache finally started to fade the minute Shaw reached her apartment building. She winced as a police car stormed by, sirens blaring as she rushed inside, eager to get home. She tightened her grasp around the Colt as she entered her office, in case anyone had been waiting for her. Keeping the lights off, she found the room as empty as she had left it hours before. Outside the window she could see the sun peeking up and she grimaced at the thought of a botched night.

 

Once she had made certain there were no threats lingering in her office, she stepped into the other section of the apartment; a makeshift kitchen that doubled as her bedroom.

 

Immediately Shaw picked up the presence of a perfume that wasn’t hers. It was familiar and she didn’t have to wonder where she had smelled it before; she turned to find Veronica cuddled up on her couch, gazing at her with sleepy eyes.

 

“There you are,” she breathed out with a raspy voice.

 

Anger flared inside Shaw’s chest at the intrusion, and she wasn’t sorry when the bright light of a lamp made Veronica grimace and blink.

 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Shaw nearly barked, ribs aching at the strain.

 

Waving the gun about seemed oddly out of place and Shaw sighed as she dropped it on her settee. Grabbing a bottle of vodka she poured herself a glass, alcohol stinging her wounded lip and burning all the way down. The ache was strangely soothing and she felt the frustration waning as she remembered a shot echoing through the night, just seconds before the chloroform had knocked her out. Grice’s assurance that Veronica had tried to prevent her abduction.

 

“I didn’t know where to go,” she confessed, running a hand through her curls.

 

The quietness of dawn lingered between them for a moment, until Shaw left the side of her bed to crash down on the couch beside Veronica.

 

“How did you escape?” she asked with a low voice, as if they were sharing secrets.

 

The room felt warmer somehow, but perhaps that was the vodka. “Doesn’t matter.”

 

Under the yellow light of the lamp, Veronica looked slightly older. Exhausted. Finch and Reese’s words came to mind and Shaw frowned. For a moment, she wondered what it changed, whether Veronica was or wasn’t who she pretended to be. There was something lurking in her gaze, something dark and heavy that Shaw hadn’t seen in a pretty girl’s eyes before. It wasn’t like the mischievous gleam from when she lied about being Lambert’s wife, or when she had drawn those curtains open.

 

All of that seemed like it had happened days or even weeks ago, and Shaw struggled to retrace her steps since then.

 

This maze she found herself into, it was intriguing. Dangerous. It had her heart racing in ways it hadn’t beaten in years, but Shaw had fought a war before. She remembered all too well where all this excitement led.

 

“You have to leave,” she told Veronica, her eyes drowning in her vodka.

 

She didn’t know why her throat jammed, as if protesting the words. Why she felt the sudden urge to move to the other side of the couch and bite on Veronica’s lips instead; to get under her skin and force her to reveal those secrets she kept so well.

 

Veronica hadn’t moved. “They’ll kill me,” she reminded Shaw. Not pleading, not accusing; she spoke as if it was a fact. As if her death was right around the corner, and that Veronica had made her peace with that.

 

But Shaw wasn’t a white knight. She wasn’t sure she could do the right thing - that was for nobler people. People like Carter, or Cole, or her father; people who respected the uniform they wore, and protected what they believed in with their lives.

 

“I need your help,” Veronica breathed out, her fingers twisting nervously.

 

It took Shaw by surprise, then, when Veronica crossed the distance between them. One hand cupping Shaw’s cheek, bringing their eyes together. Shaw could see many emotions rushing in Veronica’s gaze; fear, regret. Violence, too. The kind of anger that would burn a whole continent.

 

Absently, she wondered what Veronica saw in hers.

 

She didn’t resist when Veronica leaned in, eyes dropping to red-painted lips. Veronica tasted like gin, and kissed like goodbye.

 

“I need you,” Veronica confessed when she pulled apart.

 

Her own lips still tingling with ache, her fresh wound flaring slightly, Shaw swallowed hard. She took in a sharp breath before she fisted Veronica’s hair and kissed her again. Shaw was rougher and messier than Veronica had been; the pain rushed like a wave, hot and blinding.

 

When Shaw felt a hiss threatening to leave her she pushed Veronica away. “You should leave,” she asked, her own voice almost foreign in her ears.

 

This time, Veronica didn’t insist. Before Shaw had time to register the movement at her side, Veronica was already gone.

 

The scent of her perfume haunted Shaw’s bedroom, resilient, intoxicating. The thought that after tonight she wouldn’t smell it again was as unsettling as it had been to wash out Cole’s blood from her own uniform all those years ago, back in Austria, or like cleaning out her father’s piles of newspapers after his death.

 

When people disappeared, they always left something behind.

 

Shaw remembered that damn medal of honor hidden away in a drawer and she finished her drink in one gulp, angry and tired.

 

She fell asleep not long after that, a dreamless slumber that pressed her against the bed sheets, as if paralysed.


	6. 1947

On the first night, staring out the window at a city she hadn’t seen in such a long time, Sam Groves remembered Daniel. Seven years had passed since the NYU and the first time she had met him, sitting beside him at a library table only to criticise his incorrect use of radians in a geometry problem. Instead of bucking against her advice like most students and teachers did, Daniel had been intrigued. His eyes sparkling, he had been keen on learning more from her. Sam hadn’t met a lot of people like him in her life, not even in Arlington Hall, and she wondered, for a brief second, what had become of him.

 

If he had been enrolled like most men his age had; whether he had perished overseas or had returned home to victory gardens and a wife and child. It didn’t really matter, in the end; Sam wasn’t in New York to find him.

 

Besides, she wasn’t even Sam these days; she was Robin Farrow now. Librarian at the Richmond Hill Queens Library, she lived alone in a crummy building of Queens Village, had never married and kept little contact with her family back in Ohio. Robin Farrow – bookworm and arts aficionado – had just moved into the city for its museums, culture, and so many things that Sam had little care for.

 

The Signal Intelligence Service had given her enough money to cover the first three months’ rent for an apartment right next to their main suspect. Michael Laskey – born Mikhail Lesnichy – and his wife Hanna – born Frey – had lived in Queens his whole life, within a ten-block radius. It reminded Sam of the Bishop narrow-mindedness, and even though she hadn’t met the guy yet, she already considered him as irrelevant.

 

Although the main objective of her mission was to gather evidence on Laskey’s involvement with a Soviet spy cell, Sam wanted to do more. She had settled on unmasking the other spies he worked with, perhaps even go deep enough to find who was hiding behind the Quantum and Pers codenames – although that seemed rather unlikely to her superiors.

 

Sam didn’t mind; she had always set different standards for herself, and focusing on Laskey seemed rather boring.

 

Or so she was thinking as she returned home with a heavy bag of groceries in her hands, rolling her eyes at the baby wailing across the hall. She struggled to find her keys, hoping she could get them before she spilled the contents of her bag on the dusty floor in front of her apartment door.

 

“Need a hand?” a honeyed voice asked.

 

Sam blinked – she hadn’t made contact with her neighbours yet, and here Hanna was, talking to her with a smile and a wink.

 

Her heart skipped a beat. Whether it was because of the excitement of her mission truly beginning or because Hanna had closed the gap between them, Sam didn’t know. All she could do was feel her cheeks reddening, and her heart pounding.

 

“Thank you,” Sam smiled back, mouth inexplicably dry. She averted her eyes as she continued searching for her keys, hands fumbling.

 

“I’m Hanna,” she offered her name with a gentle voice, warm like the summers of Bishop had always been, but not harsh. Hanna’s eyes made the heat softer, like the cool river Root used to sink her feet in, back home.

 

Sam felt her cheeks redden. “Robin,” she nodded, and suddenly felt embarrassed by the lie, as if Hanna was standing so close that she would _know_.

 

“I never heard that for a woman before,” Hanna noted with a curious smile, like she was wondering where Sam was from, or why she was so odd.

 

It wasn’t the first time someone had looked at Sam as if she wasn’t normal. In Bishop it came with a look of pity. In NYC, with a glare of disgust. At Arlington it turned to annoyance.

 

In Hanna’s eyes, it was curiosity. _Interest_. Sam didn’t mind that look one bit.

 

“Parents,” she shrugged as if it was an answer. Hanna chuckled lightly just as Sam finally found the keys in her coat’s left pocket.

 

She unlocked the door under Hanna’s persistent gaze, her cheeks still red and warm, a quiet buzzing in her chest. On the pictures she had seen back in Arlington, Hanna had seemed like a sad, quiet woman. Despite the too bright colors of the kodachrome, she appeared a gloomy kind of beautiful, almost like a painting.

 

Now that she stood beside her, lively and grinning, Hanna was even more gorgeous than Sam has imagined. It was rather distracting, and Sam wasn’t sure she was enjoying the nervousness it instilled inside.

 

She opened the door but left it slightly ajar, turning around. “I’ll just...” she pointed towards the bag of groceries before taking it from Hanna.

 

Sam was about to bury herself in her apartment when Hanna stopped her. “Oh,” she insisted, eyes still locked on Sam, “if you ever need anything, my door is right there.”

 

Nodding with a shy smile and a hand on the door, Sam forced herself to speak. “Nice to meet you Hanna,” she breathed out nervously.

 

“You too, Robin,” Hanna offered like an unspoken promise that they would meet again.

 

Her heart pumping too fast, Sam felt slightly breathless as she closed the door behind her, locking it in place quickly, as if it would quiet down the rush of emotions inside. She stepped into her kitchen and dropped the bag on the counter, thoughts still focused on Hanna and the way she looked at her, how she smiled, the faint scent of her shampoo.

 

It wasn’t like Sam had never been attracted to women before, but it usually didn’t happen so fast. Often, others showed interest into her, and with time Sam somehow settled for them. They shared a few nights, and that was it.

 

Hanna, she liked right away, but as unsettling as the feeling was, it had no place in Sam’s life. She had a mission to complete, and wouldn’t let herself stray.

 

Shaking her head as if getting rid of such thoughts, Sam abandoned her groceries to sit at her desk by the window, pulling out a book and a sheet of paper. She opened her copy of the first tome of _The War of the Worlds_ and turned the pages, searching for a small sentence she could use. When she found it she grabbed a pen, and started encrypting.

 

_XIX-3. TEZE URRTFKG K UERNR._

 

Once he would receive his message at Arlington Hall, Finch would know to look for the third sentence on page nineteen of the novel. There, he would find Sam’s cipher text – “he was deaf in one ear” – and he would be able to decrypt her words.

 

_MADE CONTACT W HANNA_

 

Only Sam wasn’t sure she wanted to send it anymore.

 

A knock on the door pulled her out of her thoughts and she reached for her gun, worried. She replayed the scene in her hand as she walked towards the sound, wondering if her cover had already been blown. Through the peephole she found Hanna standing there, waiting.

 

Root’s heart raced as she noticed the way Hanna threw her gaze all around, how she pushed a curl of hair behind her ear, as if nervous.

 

With a deep breath, Root hid her revolver, and opened the door.

 

“Sorry to bother you,” Hanna apologised with a warm smile, “but I thought I’d invite you to dinner.”

 

Sam blinked, surprised. She had never been invited to anything before, and it took her a few seconds to realise that she hadn’t been; not really. _Robin Farrow_ had been asked to join her neighbours for dinner. Not Sam Groves.

 

“It’s just that my husband is having a few friends over,” Hanna explained, twisting her hands. “And I’m always the only gal and it would be nice to, you know... not be.”

 

The shock passed and Sam forced herself to smile back, despite the lava heating up in her stomach. “It sounds lovely,” she breathed out through the unbearable warmth that turned her cheeks red, and her palms moist.

 

“Is that a yes?” Hanna insisted with hopeful eyes.

 

This time, her smile was more genuine. “It is.”

 

Sam spent the rest of her afternoon turning around like an animal in its cage. One minute, she was convinced Hanna had seen through her and that _dinner_ was a trap. The next, she was certain their conversation had been earnest and genuine, and that Hanna was simply a lonely housewife eager to make a new friend.

 

Either way, she was engaged now. She hid the message she had prepared for Finch, determined to send it tomorrow instead, to see how things would play out. After all, there was the possibility that she would be dead or tortured then – the thought never left her mind for long.

 

Before she had left Arlington, she had promised Finch to reach out to him if she worried she was in danger. _Just sound the alarm_ , he repeated as if there was an actual alarm to ring, _and then wait for someone to catch you_. Root wondered once or twice if _someone_ was Sergeant Reese; one of the Army’s consultants during the war, Reese had stayed with the SIS even after V-Day, lurking around Finch’s office like some loyal dog. But Root had little care for him, or for Finch’s concerns over her safety.

 

She knew how to handle herself, and so she tied a blade to her thigh before putting on some flowery gown that Sam herself would never have worn. It fit Robin Farrow perfectly however, and that was exactly what Hanna told her, when Sam finally gathered the courage to knock on her door.

 

A fresh loaf of bread in her arms and a grin between two reddened cheeks, Sam entered the Laskeys apartment with the strangest feeling. As if tonight was some big celebration for something that she just couldn’t place. Their home was warm and neat, welcoming with its smell of spices and wine.

 

For a moment, a brief moment, Sam wondered if that was what home was supposed to be. A safe haven.

 

But so quickly she was pushed into the dining room, which doubled with the living room, where three men already sat at the table. One still had his fedora on his head, but he rushed to drop it once he laid eyes on Sam, strangely nervous.

 

At one end of the table, Sam recognised the man from Project Venona’s files; Michael Laskey, smiling back at her as if he had known her all his life. “Robin,” he stood up, gesturing towards an empty chair not far from his. “This is my cousin David Greenglass,” he pointed at a short, stubby man, “and a friend of the family, Trent Russell.”

 

The latter was the one with the fedora, who rushed from his seat to pull her chair before she sat down. Sam offered him a short thank you in return, trying not to roll her eyes at the somewhat ridiculous gesture.

 

Once Sam had taken a seat at the table, Hanna disappeared into the kitchen, and Sam seemingly turned invisible.

 

“All I’m sayin’ is gas ain’t cheap,” Laskey argued, evidently picking up the conversation where they had left it. “Long Island’s a long way from Queens.”

 

While they didn’t explain the subject of debate to Sam, she could easily understand. Laskey worked at the new Suffolk County Army air field at Gabreski airport, as a security guard. Although the airport itself mostly served civilian purposes, the Air Force had kept a few warehouses on site, which is where they believed information about their latest creation was being leaked. The P-80 Shooting Star hadn’t seen a lot of action during the war, and since most of them were still stored on military bases, Gabreski had been on their radar as soon as schematics of its proximity fuse had shown up in Soviet intelligence.

 

Sam wasn’t surprised that Laskey complained about the hour and a half it took for him to go to work every day, but it strangely annoyed her how he blamed Hanna for their decision to stay in Queens. The two other men didn’t seem too bothered at that, however, and slowly the conversation turned to baseball, with Greenglass joyfully telling the tale of how his father had taken him to see the Bambino play, once when he was a child.

 

The playful banter, the radio singing in the corner, the scent of food nearly ready; all of it seemed so warm and safe. Sam half-listened to the chatter, part of her still focused on the clatter of plates coming from the kitchen, and wondered for a moment if that was what it felt like: a normal life.

 

A couple inviting friends over for dinner and a bottle of wine. It wasn’t something Sam had ever dreamed of, but now that she was here, she could see the value of it.

 

Well, if the conversations weren’t so dull.

 

“Trent here has the worst luck in ladies,” Laskey joked, catching Sam’s attention once again. Russell twisted his face into a shy pout, but it looked odd, unnatural. Even though many others would have found it charming, Sam sensed some hypocrisy behind it; the lie underneath. The illusion of anything about this night being _nice_ was strangely shattered by it, and Sam barely listened as the men went on about Russell’s bad luck with romance.

 

During dinner, Sam faked smiles and nodded politely. Asked the right questions when needed; laughed at the men’s jokes. Quickly she was bored out of her mind, but Robin Farrow was a proper girl, one that had years of trivial conversations and dinners with friends behind her.

 

Hanna, however, had none of the bitterness Sam swallowed down every minute or so. She chuckled brightly, eyes gleaming, and followed stories with avid interest. As if everything was more interesting than her own life, Sam guessed. She had no idea how Hanna filled her days, being a housewife without children... Most likely Hanna cooked and cleaned, and waited for her husband to come home.

 

It sounded like a nightmare, something Sam would normally mock openly, but strangely all she felt was intrigued over how someone with such a boring life could seem so captivating.

 

“What about you?” Laskey questioned Sam, forcing her to return her focus on the conversation. “You got someone?”

 

She blinked, somewhat startled by the question. It would be easy to lie her way out of this, and invent some dead fiancé lost in the war. It seemed nowadays everyone had ghosts to live with – but Sam hadn’t. It felt wrong to think of spinning such a tale while Hanna was listening so avidly. So naively.

 

“I’m not the type,” Sam scrunched up her nose at the thought. Settling down with anyone had definitely never been one of her plans.

 

Greenglass pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah, you’re one of those,” he grunted, elbows on the table.

 

The wine had long flushed his cheeks and he spoke with effort, even as Laskey shook his head. “Don’t start a speech about working gals,” he interrupted, rolling his eyes as if already tired of the argument.

 

“I don’t see anything wrong with trying to turn up an honest living,” Sam frowned.

 

“And tell me sweetheart,” Greenglass leaned over the table, eyes wet from the alcohol that no doubt flooded his veins. “When you’re with a man, whose wearing the pants?”

 

Anger flushed in Sam’s chest, but before she could answer, Laskey was already openly laughing. “If I remember right David, you weren’t so frisky about what gals wore, that night we went to the cabaret.”

 

“I was drunk,” Greenglass objected.

 

Hanna grinned, not even noticing Russell staring at her as she did. “Oh, we should go to the cabaret,” she suggested joyfully.

 

Laskey’s smile turned bitter. “What, tonight?” he mocked almost angrily, and the two other men joined him in his short laughter. “We got more important things to do than take you out just so you can wear something fancy.”

 

Sam tried not to react when Hanna’s grin faltered, something clouding her eyes. Sadness, Sam thought – with a pinch of anger, or hurt.

 

“You never take me dancing,” Hanna insisted, ignoring Greenglass’ amused look and Russell’s intent stare.

 

“That’s because I’m a busy man,” Laskey replied, but he seemed to Sam more like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum than a husband speaking to his wife. Besides, what kind of a security guard was too busy to spend time with his love? It appeared to Sam as if the foremost evidence of his implication with a Soviet spies ring, but really, betraying his country was no reason to forget about his spouse.

 

Especially one as lovely and kind as Hanna. “You don’t appreciate what I do for you.”

 

Silence filled the room. After a few seconds, Russell cleared his throat, but it was Sam that spoke.

 

“I’ll take you dancing,” she offered.

 

Hanna shot her a look of surprise where fear and wonder mixed almost beautifully. Sam sent her the warmest smile she could muster, her fists still closed tight under the table, her irritation still bubbling not far from the surface.

 

“You?” Greenglass mocked.

 

But Laskey shut him up with one cold stare. “My wife found herself a friend,” he started, eyebrows cringed into an angry line, “and under my roof she will be treated with respect.”

 

Sam tried not to laugh, but really, there was something comical about such a little man, spewing threats like he was king of New York.

 

He turned to Hanna. “If you’d like that,” he answered an unasked question, “you can go.”

 

The way Hanna thanked him made Sam sick, but before the frustration could grow any more than it already had, her eyes met Hanna’s. Anger vanished out of her in the course of a few seconds, her breathing turning shallow under Hanna’s warm gaze.

 

It was only later, when she was back in her own apartment, that Sam felt the heat leaving her reddened cheeks. Even though the wine still buzzed under her skin quietly, a cold shower washed over her when she noticed her pen left out on her desk. She opened the drawer and its secret panel, where she had hidden the note intended for Finch.

 

Despite her greatest fears and hopes it was still there, white envelope as innocent as ever. It looked so benign, unimportant, and yet she had to remind herself it was the sole reason for her presence in New York. Her fingers trembled as she returned it to its hiding place.

 

She went to bed with a strange gulp in her throat, and dreamt that night that she took Hanna dancing in one of those fancy halls of Arlington. Once the song was over Finch appeared, only it was both him and Laskey at the same time. Before the orchestra could start a new melody, they took off Sam’s mask, and Hanna screamed in terror. Sam ran down endless corridors filled with Enigma machines that spit out pages and pages of codes that Sam couldn’t figure out. At the end she found Finch’s office and inside, a mirror in which she could see that she wore the face of Russell. Looking right back at her, with a cruel smile and white teeth threatening to take everything apart.

 

A monster.

 

Sam woke up cold and shivering, almost nauseous, and almost feverishly burned that first note she had written. There would be other moments – other things to relay. But nothing about Hanna, she promised herself. Hanna was kind and warm, and unless she proved Sam wrong, Sam was going to let herself believe.

 

Just this one time, she would trust that someone out there was not a monster.

 

That a person could be worth something.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The collar of her dress uniform itched at the back of her neck, the wool too warm and scratchy to ever be qualified as comfortable. It required an irreproachable posture at all times, and a tight bun that achingly pulled at her scalp. At least Shaw had not been forced to wear it often; she repressed a sigh at the thought. As a matter of fact, she had put it on only three times: at the ceremony before she had been shipped out; at the celebration where they had pinned a medal of valor on her chest; and now.

 

That medal now gleamed in the autumn’s sunlight, and Shaw guessed it would soon be hot enough to hurt at the touch. She pictured dragging her fingertips on it just to test, but it hardly seemed like the time. Besides, this symbol she was supposed to wear with pride, this token of gratitude for her faithful service and for the bravery of her actions in Austria, it was nothing but a piece of tin to Shaw. It changed nothing to the fact that she had missed Cole’s funeral all those years ago.

 

But she remembered the pride that exulted from her parents that day when the colonel had pinned that damn medal to her uniform. The way her father’s eyes gleamed, how he shook hands with the other officers with his head held up high. The thought made her uncomfortable, and she tried not to wince as she fidgeted on her car seat.

 

“I know you wanted to drive,” her mother repeated, but Shaw didn’t answer this time.

 

_It’s okay, Ma._ Except it wasn’t.

 

She understood how her mother preferred to be doing something rather than sit still. And no matter how angry and exhausted Shaw felt, she had no doubt her mother had it worse.

 

The car followed the hearse with just the sound of the engine filling the silence between them, and Shaw threw her gaze out the window once again. On the sidewalk she watched how smiles turned into frowns, how joyful conversations switched to somber hushes. It was strange to be at the epicenter of it, to witness how grief caused ripple effects as it reached even strangers, causing them to pause.

 

But perhaps that was only because of the American flags that caught the wind, one for each car in the military cortège. No matter how long the procession was, however, a dead soldier outside wartime didn’t haunt their minds for long. In the back view mirror Shaw could see the crowd moving again, the way everyone pulled out of this momentary sadness so very quickly.

 

She spared a glance towards her mother, and knew it wouldn’t be that simple for her.

 

Nothing had been simple for quite a while now, for years before her father had crashed his car into a wall.

 

His death had been ruled an accident of course. It was the rain, the speed, the broken street lamp. It was the wind, the storm, the night. It was so many things all at once that no one doubted it – no one except Shaw.

 

The bright blue sky was almost blinding, and she didn’t know where it came from really, this heaviness in her chest. It was like her heart had slowed down and her sternum had collapsed on top of it. She could breathe just fine but it required more effort, somehow. The feeling grew worse every time she looked at her mother and noticed her bloodshot eyes.

 

Shaw hadn’t seen her mother cry ever since the police had given them the news, but she knew that she had.

 

As the cortège reached the cemetery, Shaw gazed at the small crowd of uniforms that had started to gather already. Medals and uniforms just like hers, men mostly, shaking hands and talking in low voices. The tin caught the sun rays every now and them, and they glistened under the sun, as shiny as they had been all those years ago on Victory day.

 

The remembrance triggered her anger and she clenched her jaw as her mother parked her car, her cheeks reddening at the thought that most of these officers still had their rank and salary, but she didn’t. Less than a month after V-day Shaw had received the news; when every soldier around her was receiving their new posting, she had a check and a thank you letter.

 

And now she had no purpose, no father, and something stuck in her throat.

 

She barely blinked during the ceremony as the priest told tales of her father’s courage to the strangers gathered around her mother and her. There was so much no one would mention today, not ever again, that Shaw felt her anger growing with every word.

 

Her father had returned from the war different, and not only because he had lost an arm just a few months into 1944. Shaw couldn’t explain it, and neither could her mother. He would be sitting at the table, sipping his tea and reading his newspaper, and then the toaster oven would go off and he’d be startled. He’d shake and get angry at nothing, or panic and run out of the room like the world was about to end. He never smiled anymore, and they didn’t dare ask why.

 

They waited without a word, for years barely breathing, giving him time to find his feet again. He’d only apologise, tears at the corner of his eyes, over and over again. Every week, Shaw and her mother hoped things were getting better, but after the first year it became evident that they wouldn’t. Often she would hear her mother at night, humming the Persian lullabies she sang to Shaw as a kid, no doubt lulling her father to sleep, comforting him like she would a frightened child.

 

He heard bombs where there was nothing – saw destruction where there was nothing but Sunday brunch. He had a war in his mind that would never stop raging. That did not make him a hero, but it did make him a soldier.

 

And yet when the doctors didn’t know what to do with him, not long after the third consultation, the Army veterans association stopped replying to their calls.

 

And now Shaw glanced at the military crowd, proudly remembering her father’s accomplishments, and swiftly hiding under the rug just how badly the war had broken him.

 

It wasn’t the first time Shaw heard gunfire so early in a quiet morning, but this time it didn’t sprung her into action. Didn’t get her heart racing and her blood pumping. This time, it only made her feel hollow and tired, the anger draining out of her like blood. She gazed at the people’s expressions around her; grave and serious, or plainly looking bored. But they were polite, all of them; they said the right words and offered condolences and firmly shook hands. They all agreed that her father had been a good husband, a good parent, a good soldier.

 

One after the other, they all added, “what a shame, what happened to him.”

 

And one handshake after the other, Shaw’s frustration intensified. She couldn’t stop seeing that cloud in her father’s eyes, that mixture of pain and sadness. _Shame_ , the word wasn’t wrong.

 

Shame that he wasn’t half the man he had been before the war. That man in the Paris photograph had died a long time ago. For his country, for freedom, for whatever reason they sent people abroad, these days. He had been killed long before his car hit that wall; had never really returned home.

 

Shaw ignored the burning irritation in her chest as she faked smiles beside her mother, her feet aching from being still too long. Going through the motions, they both thanked and nodded, waiting for the dreadful day to end. It was a relief to see a familiar face in the crowd, quickly followed by disappointment.

 

“Private Shaw,” Hersh’s gaze was just as warm as it had been in 1940 when she had seen him last. He had remained quite the same – tall and rough, as if the years had only sharpened him.

 

“Not anymore,” Wilson corrected him before he offered Shaw his hand and a smile with pearl white teeth.

 

During her time in the army Shaw had obeyed a lot of people she hated, but Sergeant Wilson had to be at the top of her list.

 

“Sergeant,” she shook his hand anyway, feeling the curious gaze of her mother falling on her.

 

They had never really discussed her service for the U.S. army and Shaw guessed they never would. She couldn’t imagine telling her mother about what she had done in Austria, how many people she had killed on that mission alone. Couldn’t picture lying to her about it either – and so she never said anything, and her mother never asked.

 

“Master Sergeant,” Wilson glanced down on her in condescension. Of course someone like him would go up the ranks.

 

Shaw bit the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to swallow her frustration for the moment.

 

Hersh at least had the decency to look away. “Sorry about your father,” he tried after clearing his throat.

 

“It’s a shame, really,” Wilson added, and Shaw closed her fist.

 

She shook her head. “He should’ve died a hero, at the frontlines,” she admitted. As relieved as she had been to find out her father had made it through the war, she had changed her tune when she had seen him. Shattered, he wasn’t able to fit in the civilian life anymore. Shaw wondered absently if she did – if she ever could lead an ordinary life. But that had never been likely for her. “Like Cole.”

 

Hersh raised an eyebrow, but didn’t add anything.

 

“A hero,” Wilson grimaced, his eyes gazing over the crowd. “War has plenty of those.”

 

The two men shared a look, as if they knew something Shaw didn’t. “He was one,” she insisted. “Our squadron would’ve never made the advances they did without Cole and I taking out those towers,” Shaw reminded them with a frown.

 

There was something in Hersh’s eyes, something Shaw had guessed for a while now but has refused to think about.

 

A contemptuous smirk twisted Wilson’s lips. “Do you really think we would’ve given a crucial mission to a girl and a rookie?”

 

Shaw felt something snapping just under her sternum as she turned to face Hersh, not bothering to hide her anger anymore.

 

“You two were a distraction,” Hersh confessed, taking a deep breath before he added, “you were never supposed to make it out alive.”

 

The words hit her like a punch and she nearly staggered back. “I was the best you trained,” she defended, ignoring Wilson’s arrogant grin in the corner of her eye.

 

Hersh’s gaze heated with pity, and Shaw clenched her jaw. Blinking, she tried to force herself to remember her father’s body wasn’t even buried yet, his coffin still out in the open just a few meters away. She had to remain in control, had to stay calm. Her training kicked in, and she took a step back.

 

_Keep the target in sight, don’t hold your breath, wait for the right moment._

 

“You were,” Hersh agreed with a nod. “But you two were just kids.”

 

Anger swelled in Shaw’s chest, like a gust of wind but dry and burning and making it hard to breathe. “Cole was _brilliant_ ,” she argued through gritted teeth. “He wasn’t some pawn for you to send off to die.”

 

“That’s how wars are won,” Wilson replied with a shrug.

 

This time, Shaw couldn’t stop her fist. She sent him a right hook that got him stumbling backwards, and barely heard the crowd gasping in surprise. Instead, she found Hersh’s hand on her forearm, a tight hold that didn’t hurt, but promised that it very well could.

 

“This isn’t the place,” he warned her.

 

Shaw would have protested that there was no wrong moment to beat on someone like Wilson, who disregarded the lives of the men and women under his command so bluntly. Yet her gaze ran across her mother’s, and she froze.

 

One tear, and a headshake.

 

Shaw swallowed her pride and her anger; it just wasn’t the place.

 

It wasn’t until later, hours later, that Shaw finally spoke again that day. They had just returned home and Shaw was about to flee into her room when her mother had asked her to wait. Silent, she waited in the middle of the living room, still like a soldier at attention. She grimaced at the thought, but shook off the expression when her mother reappeared, a cardboard box in her hands.

 

“Here,” she breathed out as she offered it to Shaw.

 

Frowning, Shaw placed the box on the couch’s cushions before she opened it. Inside, she found old army supplies; her father’s old fatigues, dog tags that weren’t his, and that she suspected belonged to fallen comrades who had no one else. An old manganese steel vest, the kind that worked way better than the horrible Doron plates she had on her during the war. Then again, she remembered, Cole and her had been given the worst odds; it made sense they wouldn’t offer her the best equipment either

 

She sighed before she turned towards her mother, confused.

 

“I know this won’t mean anything to you,” her mother breathed, one hand raising to brush fingers against Shaw’s cheeks, finding them as dry as they had always been. On her own cheeks, a small river of salted water ran down. “But I think your father would want you to have it.”

 

Shaw’s throat tightened and she averted her gaze only for her eyes to fall on her father’s name sewn in the fatigues. The fabric was worn off in some places, nearly torn, and yet the whole thing was as neatly folded as if it had been a fifty-dollar suit.

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Shaw promised.

 

But her mother smiled, and wiped away the tear she hadn’t been able to stop. “Maybe not today, Sameen,” she nodded, oddly peaceful. “But soon.”

 

Shaw didn’t argue. Along with her father she had lost her purpose, and any desire to return to the army was trumped by the anger and disgust she felt now. Cole had been nothing but cannon fodder, when he had so much potential and talent; her father had been sent home broken, ignored by the people whose lives he had saved during the war.

 

Bringing the box of mementos back to her room, Shaw made a note of everything in it before she shoved it under the bed. There was nothing of value in there, nothing that deserved to be kept for so long. Yet instead of getting rid of it, Shaw promised herself to keep it with her no matter where she went, since it evidently meant so much to her mother. Maybe her mother hoped to sleep better by entertaining this illusion that Shaw’s father was still around somehow. Watching over them, like so many strangers at the funeral had repeated to them, one after the other.

 

But Shaw knew better. There was no ghost floating around, making sure she stepped in the right direction. No guardian angel keeping the roads ahead clear. The world was just like it had been in Austria, all those years ago, after Cole’s death. It was cold, messy, and dangerous, and Shaw had to navigate through it alone, had to make sure she would survive.

 

No one else ever would.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Hanna melted against the sheets, muscles tightening and relaxing in small warm waves. One hand wrapped around her ankle, the touch grounded her to the bed like an anchor as Sam’s fingers pushed against her thigh. Sam smiled before she leaned forward, tasting Hanna on the tip of her tongue. A short moan, nothing more than a whisper really, echoed against the walls and swelled into Sam’s stomach, turning into a fire.

 

Outside, the snowstorm raged on, but they had little care for it. Sam had pushed the bed close to the heater and every now and then it puffed a cloud of warmth, the heat so dry and high that Hanna worried it would burn the sheets – but Sam didn’t mind.

 

“Robin,” Hanna lovingly murmured Sam’s most treacherous lie, her face pressed against the pillow, one hand running through Sam’s hair, insisting.

 

Guilt tightened in Sam’s chest, a knot that pushed against her sternum even as she focused on Hanna. Even at her most gentle Sam felt too rough, too eager, too raw. She kissed and licked almost apologetically, an urgent act of contrition as she worked up Hanna’s orgasm. Drowning in Hanna’s scent, her lips promised wonders while her fingers – fingers that had never been delicate, always clumsy and wrong – already said goodbye.

 

It couldn’t last. As Sam revelled on the way Hanna’s body curled to feel her more, she knew. Nothing lasted very long.

 

Closing her eyes, Sam pictured how Hanna waved against the mattress, her hips rising as she spread herself, becoming wider, taking all the space. How Hanna became everything, filling every part of Sam’s life like she fit in all her broken pieces. Like she glued them in.

 

Hanna moaned again, just a bit louder and Sam grinned, opening her eyes to find Hanna biting her lip and teasing her breast. Sam’s hand abandoned its post at the ankle, slowly exploring Hanna’s skin until her thumb brushed against a nipple. Hanna’s teeth stopped worrying at the lip then, and twisted into a content smile instead.

 

On each side of Sam’s waist, heels dug into the mattress, an oddly comfortable embrace.

 

“Do you want more?” she asked, her breath teasing Hanna’s throbbing need. Sam chuckled lightly when Hanna hummed and nodded impatiently.

 

“Stop laughing,” Hanna admonished, although the tone sounded more playful than anything else.

 

Nevertheless, Sam obeyed. Her own arousal forgotten she concentrated on Hanna’s, fingers moving at a slow pace that never quite pushed her over the edge. Hanna’s breaths turned scarce and every one of Sam’s heartbeats, painful. The knot in her chest grew roots that flared like acid and choked her out.

 

Hanna was everything. She was a work of art forgotten in the back of a gallery and only Sam could see her as she was. Only Sam could really admire the colors, the forms, the way she moved like she had a secret or a promise to keep. The way her eyes would warm up at the sight of Sam, the way her lips would taste in the afternoon light.

 

But that was Sam’s second lie. Hanna wasn’t hers.

 

Without a word, Hanna’s hand grabbed hers, fingers linking before they squeezed hard enough to hurt. Sam pushed down the sob that threatened to leave her.

 

It wasn’t long before Hanna’s muscles tightened around Sam, heating up with an almost electrical tension. Sam stopped breathing as if trying to hold onto this moment, to stop time for a few seconds.

 

She couldn’t. Once Hanna was done Sam pulled away slowly, kissing her inner thigh with the veneration others would devote to churches and psalms. She thought of saying something she shouldn’t, three words she hadn’t spoken since Bishop and her mother’s death, but a sharp pain flared again her ankle.

 

Sam frowned, a strange smell rising in the air around her before she realised.

 

“Oh shit,” she tried to act quickly, but her sore muscles protested. Sam landed with her ass on the floor and her back against the wall. She leaned up to grab a glass of water on her settee and threw it at the small flames licking her bed sheets where they had fallen into the heater’s grasp.

 

As Hanna laughed at Sam’s clumsiness and the ridiculous situation, Sam struggled to pull herself back up. She sat on the edge of the mattress, fidgeting with the burnt bed sheets with a strange sense of loss. Her eyes watered again and she wiped her mouth on her forearm, tears threatening to fall, the knot still aching in her chest.

 

Somehow Sam felt so childish now, and so very stupid.

 

“Told you that would happen,” Hanna smiled behind her, content. A warm, gentle voice that Sam didn’t deserve.

 

A sob begged to leave her and Sam took in a sharp breath instead, fighting back the emotion. She had been so good at hiding it, at lying about everything, and yet now she looked at burnt sheets and wondered what it meant in the end. If she was going to destroy Hanna because she had never learned to care for anything.

 

“What’s wrong?” Hanna asked, her smile wavering with worry. A naked foot pressed against Sam’s lower back, insisting. “Robin?”

 

It slipped between her ribs like a dagger. Sam felt her body turning cold, eyes gazing out the window, vision blurred as if she was losing blood. The blizzard covered the city, snow piling up on the windowsill, as if winter was keeping them in. A siege; and Sam surrendered.

 

“My name isn’t Robin.”

 

It was a mistake. A foolish one at that. But Sam hadn’t contacted Arlington in weeks and now it all seemed so far, so ridiculously foreign to her daily life. Her life was Hanna now, she was all that mattered. She was the only puzzle Sam wanted to think of, and more than anything, Sam wanted to be Hanna’s, too.

 

Wanted to be better for her. Worthy. And perhaps that started with the truth.

 

Behind her, Hanna stood still, frozen. Sam didn’t dare look; she could sense the stillness and thought that maybe, after all, she had managed to stop time.

 

“I lied to you,” she confessed. The wind pushed a chaos of snowflakes against the window, erasing the outside world. Without it, Sam felt so lost, like she had wandered off somewhere. As if she didn’t know what she was looking for anymore.

 

She swallowed hard, seeing at the corner of her eye the desk where she had written so many letters to Arlington, to Finch. She hadn’t mentioned Hanna in her missives, only Laskey, Russell and Greenglass. Even now, although Hanna had given her no reason to believe that she was aware of her husband’s involvement with the NKVD, Sam couldn’t be certain.

 

_If you need help, just sound the alarm_ , she thought of Finch’s words again, _and then wait for someone to catch you_.

 

Sam hadn’t cared for his concerns; she had never been one to reach out. But if Sam had to leave her life in anyone’s hands, it would be Hanna’s.

 

And so she did just that.

 

“I’m not a librarian, Hanna,” she breathed out, trying to rid herself of her own cowardice. She turned around then, knowing she had no right to go on without looking at her. “I was sent here to investigate.”

 

Hanna had every right to look at her in disgust. In hate, even. And it was Sam’s duty to record those expressions, to carry them around like a burden, for whatever time she had left.

 

This would be considered treason; it could get her killed. Sam didn’t mind the risk, now that she was taking it. She had always known she wouldn’t last very long. Nothing did.

 

But Hanna, sweet and caring Hanna only looked confused. “Investigate what?”

 

Her gaze was earnest; genuinely unaware. Sam felt the guilt rising again – the shame of bringing this mess into Hanna’s life, of darkening this day, of turning everything into shit, like she always did.

 

“Mike... he’s stealing schematics from the base,” Sam explained. “And sending them to the NKVD.”

 

Hanna blinked as she curled up her legs, pressing her knees against her chest as if to protect herself. “That’s not...” she averted her gaze for a moment. She had that dark look clouding her eyes, like every time she invented excuses for him. Like every time she said he had not meant to slap her – had not meant to hurt her in any way. Laskey had a temper, and then he had a bad day, and then he had a headache... Sam had a mind to deal with him personally, but Hanna hadn’t wished her to.

 

Hanna had wanted to keep Sam safe. And Sam hoped she could do the same.

 

“Trent,” Hanna whispered like a question she didn’t really need the answer to.

 

Sam nodded. “He’s his liaison with the cell, I think.”

 

Minutes passed as Hanna remained silent, and Sam waited for something – anything. Anger or sadness or incredulity, but nothing came.

 

Instead, Hanna sighed. “You’re a spy,” she breathed out almost painfully.

 

Sam bit her lower lip. “I’m Root,” she offered instead of an answer.

 

“Root?” Hanna’s frown turned into a smirk. “Picked that name yourself, did you?”

 

Sam smiled back, cheeks reddening with a nod.

 

A dozen more heartbeats later, Hanna looked at Sam again. “And you’re here to put him away?” she locked her gaze into Sam’s, digging for the truth. “All of them?”

 

“Anyone involved,” Sam answered, hearing the slight accusation behind her words. She wanted to trust Hanna, she did. But maybe tonight Hanna would tell Laskey about their conversation, and Sam would disappear.

 

Torture, death at the hand of the Soviets. And even if the SIS saved her from that fate, Sam knew her future would be just as bleak. Torture, death at the hand of her own government.

 

There was a flash of hurt in Hanna’s eyes that reverberated in Sam’s chest. “Do you think I’m involved?”

 

Tears rushed to her eyes again. “No,” she admitted, but there was no way to be sure.

 

Silence filled the room once again, until all they could hear was the snowstorm raging outside, the way the wind whistled between Sam’s old windows. In the building it seemed as if all life had died, or as if everything had paused but this blizzard that demanded to be heard.

 

“What do you need?” Hanna asked. Her voice was as tiny as her curled up presence at the head of Sam’s bed, shivering and yet not hiding in the warmth of the bed sheets.

 

Sam blinked, surprised.

 

Hanna moved slowly as if asking for permission while she closed the distance between them. Instinctively Sam opened her arms, and let Hanna’s head fall on her shoulder, lips brushing against her neck.

 

“I’m going to help you,” Hanna whispered. Her skin was cold against Sam’s and she pulled on the bed sheets, wrapping the two of them as best as she could. “I’ll help, and they’ll put him away.”

 

Sam hummed, eyes still filled with water. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

 

She didn’t know what she deserved, but it wasn’t that.

 

“Then you and I can be together,” Hanna spoke again, voice breaking as if she wasn’t sure.

 

Sam looked down and kissed her softly. “Then we can be together,” Sam repeated like a promise.

 

Outside, the storm continued to rage, but for one afternoon, for one moment frozen in time, Sam truly believed she could keep them both safe from harm.


	7. 1959

A sharp pain stabbed her whenever she moved too quickly, but Shaw had never been one to linger in bed. She hadn’t bothered with her messenger bag and her camera, this time; she had a knife in her left boot, a revolver strapped to her right left and another one secured at her lower back. Weapons fully loaded and annoyance pumping in her chest, she grimaced at the bitter taste of her coffee.

 

Her morning had started later than usual, in the afternoon even, what with the whole ‘being abducted and beaten up’ taking most of her night. She would have laughed it off if she wasn’t so angry.

 

Even though children played and screamed joyfully beside her, Shaw couldn’t hear anything around her. Eyes locked on the building where Veronica lived, she saw on the park bench, waiting – but she didn’t know what for.

 

She refused to let her mind wonder where Veronica had gone after Shaw had asked her to leave; after they had kissed. She bit on her lower lip at the thought, and crossed her arms. She wasn’t there for _her_ , Shaw reminded herself. It had nothing to do with her.

 

Really, it was for that dead soldier who had taken his last breath in a seedy basement downtown that she was still working Veronica’s case. It was to right the wrong of his death, in a way – and Shaw tried not to think how it wasn’t like her, this noble task she had set herself on. She was glad that Carter wasn’t around to point it out. She could hear her voice in her head anyway, mocking Shaw’s motives, teasing her for being attracted to a woman whose name she didn’t even know.

 

But Shaw wasn’t entirely blind; she guessed she wasn’t risking her life – _again_ – for a crush on some annoying dame that didn’t give her the time of day. The soldier’s death had triggered something inside, an old anger that usually growled way deep inside and that now threatened to explode any minute. She had buried the betrayal along with her father, but it nagged her now; how some people so bluntly broke the unspoken vow that came with their uniform, and how they sullied it to the point where the stain could never be washed away.

 

She had never lost sleep over a case before – well, only once, but that had been different, Shaw reassured herself. That kid had been different. Shaw tried not to think of how she had felt the same about Cole, about that kid, about Carter, and now about Veronica. That they were unique. Different.

 

“You look terrible,” Carter smirked as she took a seat on the park bench.

 

Shaw glared at her.

 

Carter only laughed. “Don’t kill the messenger,” she lifted her hands as if surrendering.

 

“Well I have to kill _someone_ ,” Shaw answered, her eyes returning to Veronica’s building as if anytime now, it would move.

 

There was a gust of wind that shook the branches of the trees above, and Carter didn’t comment on Shaw’s darkened mood.

 

“You’re still working the Lambert case, aren’t you?” she guessed instead.

 

Shaw sucked in a deep breath, “not exactly.”

 

It seemed like it had been weeks since they last shared a drink, and yet it was only days ago. So much had happened since then that Shaw didn’t bother with explanations. Besides, Carter and Shaw had long settled that more often than not, the less she knew about Shaw’s work, the better.

 

“Hard to believe you’d end up in that shape over a missing dog,” Carter raised an eyebrow.

 

Shaw groaned in irritation – with everything that happened she had completely forgotten about the hobo she had promised to track down. “Things got complicated,” she replied.  A brunette stepped out of the building and for a moment Shaw’s heart raced, until she realised it wasn’t Veronica.

 

“Complicated,” Carter repeated, doubtful. “how?”

 

Her entire body still ached from the previous’ day’s beating. “The less you know, the better.”

 

Carter turned stiff. “I know how to hold my own,” she reminded her.

 

Shaw knew there was no point in arguing with Carter; she always won in the end. Instead, she shrugged; “lots of players involved.”

 

“You mean it isn’t Lambert’s goons that did this?” she ran a cold finger just under the cut on Shaw’s cheek.

 

Shaw repressed a hiss, even though the familiar touch wasn’t unwelcomed. In fact with everything that had happened, Shaw was due to let out some steam, but she couldn’t tell that to Carter. Not anymore.

 

“Clients of his,” she explained, and frowned. “Or employers. I’m not sure.”

 

Laundering money and drugs for the government certainly placed Lambert in an awkward position. Shaw understood better what Carter had meant when she had warned her that he had friends in high places.

 

“Need help?” Carter asked, and all traces of her previous mocking vanished from her face. She had that grave look on her, like she was ready to go to war, and Shaw wished – not for the first time – that Carter had been sent overseas with her all those years ago. But Carter had enrolled in the army ranks in late 1943, and by then Shaw had already joined the troops from Operation Husky in Sicily.

 

Carter would have been a good back-up; they worked efficiently together and she had no doubt that she would increase her chances of survival if she brought Carter in on this. But it would also put her at risk, and that wasn’t something Shaw was prepared to do. “I’m fine,” she shrugged, and the movement flared up the pain in her chest, but she did her best to hide it.

 

“You don’t look fine,” Carter insisted, her eyes lifting from Shaw to something behind her. “And I think you got a stalker.”

 

Shaw turned around quickly, just in time to see a man in a suit heading into an alley down the block. She rolled her eyes; “that one’s not a problem.” And then, as an afterthought, she added, “yet.”

 

Carter sighed. “Do you know what he wants?”

 

But Shaw knew when to stop talking, and when to start asking questions. “What else can you tell me about Lambert?”

 

Beside her she heard a soft sigh, and then Carter straightened her back. “We can’t touch him,” she started, and waited a few seconds before she continued, as if she wasn’t sure that she was ready to share that information with Shaw just yet. In the end, whether it was because of trust or because of Shaw’s pitiful state, she carried on; “he has friends in high places, but I think he has a few officers working for him too.”

 

Shaw nodded. It wasn’t very surprising that corrupted cops would be involved as well, but it did make the city quite the unwelcoming place at the moment.

 

“If he’s onto you,” Carter shook her head, “he gonna give you hell.”

 

Shaw smirked. She didn’t mind that. Of course the pain in her ribs and the throbbing of her head didn’t promise a smooth ride, but Shaw had woken up more alive than she had been in years.

 

“He’s not the one I’m worried about,” she answered just as a familiar head appeared at the corner of the street. Shaw kept her eyes on Veronica, walking down the sidewalk towards her building with hurry in her steps. Shaw’s chest contracted almost painfully; she had hoped for a moment that Veronica had heeded her warning and left town – and yet strangely, she was also relieved at seeing her again.

 

Carter cleared her throat. “I’m assuming that’s her?”

 

Shaw frowned. “Who?”

 

“The person you were waiting for,” Carter looked at Veronica as well, eyes scrutinising the stranger. “Why we’re meeting here.”

 

“I wanted to meet in a neutral place,” Shaw retorted.

 

But Carter wasn’t fooled. “She’s pretty.”

 

Silence fell on the two of them as the kids playing beside them suddenly left, following their mother out of the park.

 

“But you’re not one to fall for the pretty face,” Carter continued. “What’s different about this one?”

 

Shaw grimaced. “I’m not falling for anyone,” she argued, her eyes still locked on Veronica, even as she entered her building and disappeared from view.

 

Carter had this smirk that Shaw had seen a few times before – that grin that meant she knew something Shaw didn’t. As usual it annoyed her, but she tried to ignore the way it tugged at her – relentless. “You keep telling yourself that,” Carter replied.

 

She rose to her feet, pulling on the edge of her uniform. “Sure you don’t want back up?”

 

Shaw thought about that dead soldier and the smell of bleach. She couldn’t do that to Taylor – couldn’t put his mother at risk.

 

“Sure,” she looked up at Carter, her eyes falling into hers, “but some things you gotta do alone.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Streets around Veronica’s building had started to quiet down as most people returned home for dinner. Sitting on the stairs of a fire escape she waited, something very off despite the domesticity of her surroundings. Eyes on Veronica, she alternated between frowns and sighs, growing impatient.

 

Veronica hadn’t seemed to notice the attention, as she heated leftovers on the stove and poured herself a glass of wine. Strangely, even though every gesture appeared oh so ordinary, Shaw felt as if it was an act. She remembered the way Veronica leaned at the windowsill just the day before, looking for her. Today, however, she never glanced outside, not even for a second.

 

Shaw wondered if she was given the cold shoulder, or if Veronica truly had no idea that she was there.

 

When a red Corvette turned around the corner and parked just in front of Veronica’s building, Shaw’s heart skipped a beat. An odd frustration brew inside as Lambert pulled out of the car, casually walking to the front door. Even though Shaw’s eyes couldn’t follow him inside, she guessed he kept the same relaxed arrogant demeanor as he made her way to Veronica’s apartment.

 

Her instincts screamed for her to move, but Shaw didn’t want to listen. Stubborn, she ran the tip of her tongue over the cut on her lower lip, silently making the inventory of the bruises and pain she had already gotten out of trying to help Veronica. She wasn’t worth it, Shaw kept repeating to herself, and yet she stayed there, as if paralysed.

 

Veronica might have known that Lambert would seek her out, after Shaw’s abduction just outside his club. And yet she had spent the afternoon tidying up her apartment, as if nothing was amiss. As if she hadn’t spent the previous night hiding in Shaw’s office, afraid for her safety. For her life.

 

But when Veronica moved from her couch to answer the door, she sent one look out the window, and Shaw groaned in irritation. Of course she had known Shaw was there watching. Of course she counted on her for protection.

 

As Lambert entered Veronica’s apartment, Shaw noticed how Veronica shifted in her seductive persona, all smiles and light touches. Yet it seemed to have little effect on Lambert, whose anger built up with every second passing by. Every time it looked like she had pacified him, Lambert shrugged it off and invaded her personal space, his gestures more and more aggressive.

 

When Veronica offered him a glass of wine, Lambert threw it against the wall, and as it shattered on impact Shaw stood up. The urge to run across the street buzzed in her ear, louder than the aching in her ribs and the throbbing headache that had returned. But it wasn’t until Lambert raised his hand and slapped Veronica hard that Shaw really felt something exploding in her chest.

 

Her pulse went awry as she moved, running down the fire escape with little care for the noise she made and the pain that flooded her nervous system. Having been still for so long hadn’t helped the healing of her bruises as much as she would have hoped, but it was a distant concern now. All that mattered was how fast she could reach Veronica’s door.

 

Under her feet the metal ladder of the fire escape screamed like thunder as she jumped off it, shoes hitting the asphalt hard. The pain flared angrily and sent a rush of adrenaline through Shaw’s veins while she ran down the alley and reached the building’s main entrance.

 

She climbed the staircase in a hurry, searching for Veronica’s apartment number on the identical doors down the corridor. Her mind refused to imagine how the situation might have derailed further in there; instead it replayed over and over again the image of Lambert’s palm crashing against Veronica’s cheek, so much that Shaw could hear the hiss, the split second gasping for air. She could see the flash of panic in Veronica’s eyes as seeped into her the thought that perhaps her game ended tonight.

 

That perhaps Shaw wasn’t coming to save her after all.

 

She finally located the tainted gold numbers on one door, and heard Lambert’s muffled yell coming through the cheap wood. “You knew her,” he insisted angrily, “do you know him too?”

 

Shaw didn’t bother to knock; she found the door locked and so she took a few steps back, gathered momentum and smashed her shoulder against the door, near its weak hinges. It gave in easily and she stepped inside without her gun out – a mistake, but she hadn’t been thinking clearly.

 

In the bedroom on her left she noticed Lambert straddling Veronica on her bed, his two hands around her throat choking her. Before Shaw had time to pull out her gun he had already caught onto her presence, abandoning Veronica to run towards Shaw instead. With his wrinkled suit and undone tie, sweat forming on his forehead, he looked like a madman and Shaw would’ve found it comical if she wasn’t so pissed off.

 

She welcomed him with a jab and he blinked, a curious expression as if he was surprised and slightly insulted. When he threw a punch her way Shaw smirked; she had to admit he had some kick, but her anger was burning bright. She had her mind set on pummeling him to a pulp, and it did not matter that he had strength. She could reply in kind; better even.

 

She punched him just his ribs, cutting his air for a few seconds before she brought her elbow down on his neck. He grabbed her by the waist and pushed with all his might, ramming her into furniture; a library that broke on impact, a rain of books hitting her. White and hot pain submerged her senses for a moment before she remembered to breathe.

 

Veronica appeared behind Lambert then, but before she had time to do anything he had already turned around. Shaw had never really noticed the sound of a fist cracking skin and bones before, but she did now.

 

“Don’t touch her,” she groaned more than she yelled, pushing herself off the wall and charging him again.

 

He still had his back on her when she kicked him hard just behind the knee. He fell to the floor while Shaw grabbed his arm and locked it against his back. As she pushed him down, pressing his chest and face against the woodwork, Shaw pulled a hiss of pain out of him.

 

“You don’t get to touch her,” Shaw repeated angrily in his ear.

 

A strange sense of alarm rose inside when she noticed Veronica had left the room, and was nowhere to be found. Using Shaw’s distraction against her Lambert managed to push himself up, and Shaw lost his hold on him as she stumbled backwards. He returned to his feet, smirking, his eyes gleaming like he had no doubt he was going to win this fight.

 

Shaw barely had time to blink before she heard the detonation of a gun. A small red circle appeared on Lambert’s white shirt, quickly turning into a tear of blood running down his chest. He gasped for air, a confused look on his face for a few seconds before he fell to the floor.

 

Behind him, Shaw found Veronica standing in the threshold with cold eyes and a hot revolver. Veronica stared at Lambert as he took his last breath, jaw clenched, finger still on the trigger. Shaw guessed it wasn’t supposed to be so arousing, seeing a bruised and bloodied Veronica holding her weapon steady, with murder in her gaze.

 

And yet it was.

 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Shaw warned, pushing her unwelcomed thoughts aside.

 

Veronica barely spared her a look as she shrugged. “He had it coming.”

 

Shaw brushed a finger over her cheek; luckily the fight hadn’t reopened her previous wound. “That’s not the point,” she argued.

 

Blinking, Veronica lowered her gun and turned to face her. “What’s your point then, Shaw?” she croaked. The skin of her throat had turned red from Lambert’s hands choking her, and her eyes burned with a rage Shaw hadn’t seen before. “Not to kill?”

 

“Not to get caught,” Shaw answered, leaving the bedroom to look at the apartment’s front door, busted open. They had to leave now; there was no doubt at this point that at least one neighbour had called the police already.

 

From the other room, Shaw heard the sound of a drawer being pulled open. Seconds later Veronica appeared, throwing keys at her; “you drive.”

 

Before Shaw could question her, Veronica left her apartment, and Shaw followed without a word. “Back door,” Veronica explained casually, as if they weren’t running away from a crime scene, and were just heading out for a walk. They climbed down the stairs of a narrow emergency exit that had clearly been used only for taking down the garbage; it reeked.

 

At least Shaw couldn’t smell Veronica’s perfume anymore.

 

Veronica led them both to a car parked a few blocks down, and they heard police sirens blaring closer as Shaw turned on the engine. She drove them out of them without a word, the car disappearing into traffic with the cops being none the wiser. By the time they would find Lambert’s body and identified Veronica, Shaw would already be too far to be found.

 

“You’re gonna be the main suspect,” Shaw avoided looking at her. Veronica was too calm, too warm beside her. Too close.

 

Veronica shrugged. “I was tired of Veronica anyway,” she ran a hand through her hair. “And he had a lot of enemies they’ll want to focus on.”

 

Shaw wondered if Lambert’s was the first life Veronica had taken – somehow it seemed unlikely. Under the reddened sky of dusk, it was almost frightening to hear Veronica’s dark voice.

 

“I’ll be gone before anyone can get close.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw couldn’t help being pleased at the small shiver that shook Veronica while they passed in front of the police station. As officers chatted outside Shaw parked the car, one eye on Veronica, as if worried she was going to run. It bothered her, to bring Veronica back to her apartment, but it seemed like the best options. She had no money for a hotel room, and her office had better weapons anyway.

 

Following Shaw without a word, Veronica kept the somber face that had weighted her down ever since she had fallen silent. Shaw didn’t question it; she had enough interrogations on her own.

 

When Shaw locked her apartment’s door behind them, she didn’t bother with the lights.

 

“So what’s your name now?” Shaw asked, clearing the room before she grabbed a bottle of whisky from her drawer.

 

Veronica had already moved into the next room, and Shaw found her on the couch, at the exact same spot she had been the night before. Only this time she looked at ease, like she belonged there, and Shaw felt a familiar burning inside at the remembrance of that kiss.

 

As Veronica lifted her eyes to gaze at her, Shaw repressed the urge to draw a sharp breath. “Root,” she offered with a strangely nostalgic smile. “I go by Root.”

 

Shaw rolled her eyes; that clearly wasn’t on anyone’s birth certificate. “Chose your own name, uh?” she mocked lightly, headed for the cabinet where she kept her glasses.

 

Root shrugged. “I didn’t like the one they gave me,” she answered, eyes boring into Shaw as she poured them both a drink.

 

The night had just started to sneak on the city, and even though traffic still buzzed outside, the growing darkness added a quiet shroud. Despite all the unknowns, Shaw felt a little more at peace than she had been for a while, now.

 

She offered a glass of whisky to Root before she sat on the couch as well, sighing. “What’s your plan?”

 

As Shaw switched on a lamp, orange light pushed away the shadows and illuminated the cut on Root’s lip and the bruises forming around her neck. Shaw sipped her whisky in silence, not waiting for an answer as much as staring at the wounds, strangely fascinated.

 

She had no doubt now that Root had been expecting her to protect her earlier, and it instilled warmth in Shaw’s chest, heat pouring out in her limbs – but maybe that was just the whisky.

 

Root seemed to notice Shaw’s intent stare, and she bit her lower lip. “I’ve had worse,” she whispered softly. It was meant as a reassurance, no doubt, but it reminded Shaw of the stakes. Of the danger that still lurked outside the door.

 

She pulled apart slightly. “You didn’t answer my question.”

 

Yawning, Root stretched her arms. “For now? Sleep,” she replied with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. She sipped her whisky with her eyes locked in Shaw’s, but coughed as the alcohol scorched down her throat. Shaw laughed; the girl could kill a man, but she obviously couldn’t hold her liquor.

 

Root pouted as she set her glass aside, one eye still on the bed. Somehow the atmosphere turned heavy and Shaw cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable. “Root?” she insisted. It seemed oddly familiar, using that name that wasn’t a name. Strangely it fit Root better than _Caroline_ or _Veronica_ had before. “What’s going on?”

 

Teeth still worrying at her lower lip, Root closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry Shaw,” she answered in a low voice before she looked at her again. “I can’t trust anyone with this.”

 

“You trusted me,” Shaw argued. Not that she wanted to discuss that weird stunt Root had just pulled with Lambert. Trusting that Shaw would come to help when he’d come for her... that had been incredibly stupid. _And incredibly brave_ , she unwillingly added, thinking back to how she met Carter, all those years ago.

 

She had no idea why Root was doing whatever the hell she was doing. But no matter what was unfolding in front of Shaw, Root had made it clear it was worth risking her life over.

 

“I _needed_ you,” Root corrected.

 

To gather evidence against Lambert at first, Shaw thought back to how it had all started. But _Veronica_ already served that purpose, and the _Caroline_ alias hadn’t been very solid. Root had been rushed; something had forced her hand and Shaw guessed it had something to do with the presence of Finch and Reese in town.

 

“You needed someone to do the leg work in a case against Lambert,” Shaw tried aloud, hoping Root would fill in the blanks. Root nodded, but it wasn’t the whole truth, Shaw could tell.

 

Root sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to lie,” she promised, and sounded earnest for a change, “but this is not something I can share.”

 

As starved for information as she was, Shaw was growing tired of warning speeches. Besides, actions always spoke louder than words, and she remembered what Grice had told her – that Root had tried to stop her from being captured, that night at the club.

 

As if on instinct, she lifted her hand and ran a finger down Root’s neck, fingertips tracing the contour of the bruises.

 

“I don’t trust easy,” Root repeated in a hiss, her eyes searching Shaw’s face, boring into her like she was looking for answers. Like Shaw was a puzzle to solve.

 

Shaw swallowed the rest of her glass in one mouthful, letting it sting in her throat. “Me neither,” she replied, leaning in.

 

She wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but it was already too late. Shaw was in too deep already, strangely attracted to the mystery that Root was. No matter how annoyed she was at the manipulative way Root had dragged her into this mess, there was no denying that Shaw had felt more alive in the last few days than she had in years.

 

Root’s lips still tasted like whisky and Shaw dropped her glass, one hand wrapped around Root’s nape as the other came to rest on her thigh. Smirking into the kiss, Root pulled herself closer, fingers running through Shaw’s hair. Unhurried, Root’s tongue teased at Shaw’s lips, too playfully for the need that had built up inside Shaw.

 

Breaking the embrace, Shaw found a grinning Root staring back. “Not enough?” she mocked, but before Shaw had time to answer, Root was already straddling her lap. “I agree,” she whispered, her long curls tickling Shaw’s skin when she leaned down to kiss her again.

 

This time, Root nipped at Shaw’s lower lip, one hand tugging on her hair roughly. Shaw hissed, the pain strangely soothing her throbbing head. Root’s knees on each side of her put a slight pressure on her ribs, but it only flared her arousal.

 

There was something urgent in the way Root kissed, her fingernails digging into Shaw’s skin, eager to leave marks. A rushed energy that captivated Shaw, leaving her wanting more, and it wasn’t long before she stood up, lifting Root with her. Strong thighs wrapped around her waist as Shaw carried her to bed, the effort rewarded by a short gasp.

 

Root’s hair sprawled over the mattress as she fell back, Shaw smirking above her. As much as she wanted to make Root squirm and scream, Shaw undid her own pants, the urgency of her desire rushing her movements. Root pushed herself up, her hands reaching for Shaw’s stomach, lifting her shirt so she could kiss and bite the skin just under the navel.

 

As Shaw’s pants fell to the floor her fingers tangled in Root’s hair, urging her down even as her other hand teased her breast. Shaw closed her eyes, picturing that tongue further down, slightly angry with herself for how desperate she had become.

 

So much that it took her by surprise, when Root’s hands firmly grabbed her ass and pulled her down on the bed, quickly spinning them both so she could land on top of Shaw. Before she could protest, Root’s fingers were already teasing her, warm pleasure contrasting with the sharp pain the movement had caused.

 

It wasn’t long before Root’s other hand wrapped around Shaw’s neck, pressing slightly, as if asking for permission. Shaw frowned, her hands freezing on Root’s thighs. It wasn’t something anyone had ever done to her without her asking, and Shaw wondered how Root had guessed she liked it – how she seemed to know what kind of pain to deal and just how much.

 

Shaw found Root’s eyes in the orange glow of the room – gleaming, almost hopeful – and nodded. Root grinned before her palm pressed harder, restricting Shaw’s breath without cutting it entirely. Torn between the sense of alarm and the desire to let go, Shaw’s muscles weakened slightly. Her instincts screamed for her to buck against Root, to push her off; instead she held onto her thighs, her fingers no doubt creating bruises on Root’s skin as she choked the life out of Shaw.

 

The thought aroused her even more and Shaw closed her eyes for a moment, letting it wash over her. It was an exhaustion tingling at the muscles, a strange relief as if being powerless freed her, in a way – lessened the burden on her shoulders.

 

It was as if she could finally rest, and at the same time, it was oddly revitalizing. It urged Shaw to fight against Root’s hold. Ever since she had broken things off with Carter, she had mostly felt anger, and nothing else. There was no thrill in her life, no purpose. No excitement; just daily tasks accomplished one after the other.

 

It wasn’t sad, really; it was frustrating. And now that Root threatened her life even as she teased her, Shaw’s irritation slowly vanished, as if it offered relief, in a strange way.

 

Root was nothing but tender, and yet she lingered. Took her time to pull hisses out of Shaw that would shame her if it wasn’t for all that whisky. Made her head spin – in a good and a bad way.

 

It was easy to let her take control; easy, and surprisingly familiar.

 

Shaw growled at the thought, trying to shrug Root off her, but Root wouldn’t budge.

 

“You can have your turn later,” she promised, leaning down. In the crook of Shaw’s neck, Root left a kiss, and then whispered; “I’ll even let you choke me too, if you want.”

 

Shaw cursed the arousal that came back then, loud and blinding, making her want to agree to anything Root would’ve asked. In the back of her mind, she wondered if it had been Root’s plan tonight – if this was a seduction. It slowed her down for a second, made her feel more angry and aroused, and she grabbed Root’s wrist in her hand, forcing her to stop.

 

“What?” Root asked – half annoyed, half – something else. Something Shaw would describe as concern, but that was ridiculous. They were strangers.

 

And this was a one night fling. Nothing else.

 

“Don’t get attached,” Shaw grunted instead of the accusation she had wanted to spit out. Instead of asking Root what she wanted, what they were doing, if this was real. If this was just another ploy.

 

What would it matter if this meant nothing to Shaw? But it kept nagging at her as Root laughed. “You say the sweetest things,” she grinned.

 

Shaw didn’t like it one bit, that look in Root’s eyes. It meant too much, her heart beat too loud and she had too much to drink. And yet she didn’t protest when Root pressed her palm against her throat again, slowly, almost as if testing the water. As if unsure she was allowed to go ahead.

 

Shaw bit her lower lip, and nodded again.

 

Fingers rushed inside her as the air left her again and Shaw felt as if her entire body was exhaling then, letting out the pressure in a way.

 

Like small explosions all over, but painfully slow.

 

Above her, Root’s hair fell down, waving with every one of her movements, terrible and beautiful, quiet and strangely magnificent.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Night had truly fallen around them when Shaw pulled herself out of bed. She expected a murmur of protest, but only silence filled the room. One peek over her shoulder revealed a naked Root still grinning, face against the pillow.

 

“You killed me,” Root pouted at Shaw’s serious expression.

 

Shaw shrugged. She fought against her exhaustion, determined to get dressed before she’d decide on how to proceed from here. Business was one thing, and sex another; she wasn’t about to discuss strategies while lying in bed half-naked.

 

Root rolled her eyes, grabbing her clothes from the floor. “No pillow talk, then?”

 

“We can talk,” Shaw grunted as she clasped her bra in place. “How about you start by telling me why that man is after you?”

 

Root frowned, something like surprise gleaming in the back of her eyes. “What man?”

 

Before Shaw could question Root about Finch, she heard a small thump coming from the other room. She shared a look with Root before she zipped up her pants, grabbing her gun from the settee. A few quiet footsteps approached and Shaw moved closer to the door slowly, muscles tensed. Root, still in just her lacy underwear, pulled out a handgun from her purse and nodded, as if ready for a fight.

She gestured for Root to hide behind the cabinet as she pressed herself against the wall beside the entrance of the room, getting ready to surprise whoever was trying to sneak in.

 

When the door opened Shaw waited until she could see the stranger partially; black cargo pants with a matching sweater, the dark ski mask let everything to the imagination. Shaw didn’t wait one more second before she grabbed the door knob and hit them hard by closing the door on them.

 

They stumbled backwards and Shaw quickly stepped forward, pulling off the ski mask to reveal an angry blonde. When she threw a punch at her, Shaw ducked the blow and sent one back, hitting her just under her sternum. The hit sent water to the blonde’s eyes and Shaw continued pushing her back, using the butt of her gun to further the inflicted pain.

 

The blonde had barely managed to hit her when she sent a strange look over Shaw’s shoulder - a joyful gleam that seemed almost victorious. Shaw turned around to find Root being thrown violently against the wall by a second assailant Shaw hadn’t noticed before. Anger bursted inside at the intrusion just before the blonde grabbed a fistful of Shaw’s hair and knocked her head against the desk. The blinding pain caused her to blink for a few seconds, but not enough to give the blonde time to try again. Shaw reached for the letter opener she kept beside her phone and blindly threw a punch behind her, the makeshift weapon hitting its mark. When Shaw turned around it was deeply jammed in the blonde’s stomach, the handle sticking out almost comically.

 

“Bitch,” the blonde spit out in disgust, her eyes on the letter opener, blinking as if confused or in shock. She was quickly turning pale and Shaw guessed she wasn’t going to be a problem for a while. She rushed to help Root with her own assailant, but she found him on the floor beside her bed, his hands on his eyes, screaming in pain.

 

“Do I wanna know?” Shaw asked and Root grinned.

 

“Probably not,” she beamed, but her eyes changed when she noticed something behind Shaw. “Get down!”

 

Shaw dropped down just as a rifle went off, bullets painting a line all over her wall. “I’m gonna bill you for this,” she yelled at Root as she pointed towards her bedroom window.

 

Root laughed, crawling there as another rain of bullets went over their heads. On the way she grabbed her dress and Shaw’s sweater from the floor, just as Shaw fired back a few rounds. The lamp had been hit during the previous spree and in the dark it wasn’t easy to see her target, but Shaw still heard the thump of a body falling to the floor.

 

“Nice shot,” Root appreciated and Shaw smirked, feeling smug. She hadn’t lost the touch it would seem, but there was no time to celebrate. The blonde was back with two guns now, shooting in their direction just as Root managed to open the window and get through.

 

Shaw covered her exit by firing back a few shots that missed their mark, and then waited until the blonde had to reload before she left her apartment the same way. Outside, Root had slipped on her dress, Shaw’s sweater still in hand. As both of them ran down the fire escape, Shaw tried to catch her breath, her ribs burning in ache.

 

“Friends of yours?” she questioned, jumping to the ground and looking around the alley, her gun drawn out. No doubt reinforcements would find them soon enough – they had to leave, and fast.

 

“Not really, no,” Root replied, shoving the sweater in Shaw’s hands before she pointed at Shaw’s motorcycle. “Shall we?”

 

Shaw shook her head, quickly putting on the garment. “I ain’t letting them shoot at my bike,” she answered before she ran towards the street, only to find that the tires on Root’s car had been slashed open.

 

Ignoring Root’s complaint about random acts of vandalism - even though they both suspected it wasn’t random at all - she reached for the next best thing; an old Chieftain that had seen better days.

 

“Now’s the time to be useful,” Shaw crashed the butt of her gun against the back window, barely blinking at the broken glass it sent all over the backseat. She then offered her gun to Root while she reached into the car to unlock the driver’s door.

Root didn’t answer, her fingers wrapping around the revolver’s handle almost naturally. She clenched her jaw as she turned her attention towards Shaw’s building. In the meantime, Shaw quickly sat behind the steering wheel, undoing a panel under the dashboard to highjack the ride. Just as Root started shooting at their assailants, Shaw heard the loud roar of the Chieftain’s engine; one of the sweetest sounds she had ever heard.

 

Without needing to be told, Root opened the passenger door and hurried inside, not batting an eyelash when Shaw pressed down the gas pedal hard. Speeding down the avenue, it didn’t take long for another car to join them and Shaw tried to turn corners at the last second possible while Root kept her eyes on the mirror.

 

“Should I shoot at them?” Root asked, checking their limited amount of bullets remaining.

 

Shaw groaned, focused on her driving. “What good would that do but piss them off?”

 

“I think they’re already pissed,” Root noted absently.

 

“And whose fault is that?” Shaw nearly barked, cutting a red light and hearing urgent and angry horns behind them. That would help slow their assailants but it wouldn’t do much in the long run if she couldn’t find a way out of the city.

 

Beside her, Root looked outside like a tourist in awe of skyscrapers. Shaw’s frustration grew louder at the thought that she was now forced to flee New York because of this crazy woman she didn’t know. Because that damned Root had decided that Shaw was one of the good ones.

 

Foot down on the gas pedal, Shaw barely glanced in the back view mirror; she knew they hadn’t gotten rid of their pursuers yet. She could almost hear the tires screeching against the asphalt – that was, if that Chieftain’s engine wasn’t so loud. She turned a corner fast, Root nearly falling on her lap as she did, and ignored the self-satisfied smirk that popped on Root’s face. It was hardly the time.

 

Although the whole situation was, Shaw had to admit, kind of hot.

 

She continued down the street and turned on a busy boulevard, but the size of the car didn’t allow for much manoeuvring. All she could hope for was that she had picked a common vehicle that could blend in with the others, and that their pursuers wouldn’t recognise in the middle of downtown traffic. Gas tank was starting to run low, and she didn’t like the thought of having to stop to switch cars; not while they were still so close.

 

Shaw drove from one busy street to another, respecting speed limits and trying to avoid suspicion. When she felt safe that they had dropped the chase, Shaw parked the car at a twenty-four hour gas station and pointed towards the vehicle just in front of them.

 

“I’ll take the employee, you go for the driver,” Shaw instructed Root as they both stepped out of the car.

 

“Excuse me, sir?” she asked and the employee left the car he was pumping to see what was wrong. At the corner of her eyes Shaw could see Root slipping into the other vehicle’s passenger seat.

 

In a matter of seconds, Shaw reached for the employee’s neck and bashed his head against the car, knocking him out. She turned around to see the driver’s unconscious body being pushed out of his door, Root devilishly grinning back at Shaw.

 

When Shaw sat in the car – stepping over the driver and then shutting the door closed –, Root still gazed at her with the same lovey-dovey grin. “Well this is fun,” she told Shaw joyfully.

 

The street behind them finally looked empty, but Shaw’s heart was still racing fast. She drove down a couple of blocks before she turned into an alleyway, hiding the car in the shadows as much as she could. She turned off the lights and killed the engine, ignoring how, beside her, Root was smiling as if Christmas had come early.

 

“What do we do now?” she asked, eyes still gleaming despite the darkness around them.

 

Tired and frustrated, Shaw blinked once before she closed her fist. Taking a short breath, she felt Root’s warm skin nearly breaking under her knuckles as she knocked her unconscious.


	8. 1949

New York smelled like garbage on most days, but it had incredible foods; or so Shaw had figured out ever since she had moved to Brooklyn a few months back. The cheap apartment building where she lived had nothing to be envied, but it ensured that she wouldn’t run out of her savings before another two months. Now all she had to do was find herself a job, which surprisingly wasn’t easier in a large city than it had been in a small town.

 

Back home she worked in a factory; physical labour helped with her anger, and the constant rhythm of the place, its buzzing like a beehive made her feel useful. It wasn’t the dream job she had expected growing up, but Shaw wasn’t one to complain. She needed the money and so for a few years she had returned to the warehouse every day like clockwork.

 

But here it seemed the factory owners all looked for a bulky man twice her size, when Shaw could take them down in a heartbeat. It wasn’t something she could show however, short of breaking a future employer’s nose, and so she patiently consulted the ads every morning, every day her frustration growing a little more.

 

When she had picked New York, Shaw had hoped on finding employment that would suit her better than odd jobs. There was no point in going back to school at her age, and the U.S. Army kept its doors closed. The problem was that with all those fine men coming back from the war, most jobs had also started refusing women candidatures, and so Shaw had nowhere to go.

 

Every morning she went for a run around the neighborhood, trying to get some of her anger out; today she ran twice the distance she usually did, exhausting herself as much as she could before she’d have to face the empty afternoon hours. She settled on stopping by the small grocery store down the street before she returned home; maybe cooking something nice would make her time seem a little more worthwhile.

 

Shaw was waiting in line at the cash register when a man walked in from the street, panting like he had been running for miles. She wouldn’t have paid him a second thought if she hadn’t noticed right away the gun in his hand.

 

A weapon that he quickly pointed at the cashier’s head. “Don’t move!”

 

It was so predictable that Shaw rolled her eyes, certain he would ask for money next. But it was with a little bit of surprise – and almost enjoyment – that she saw the stranger stepping forward instead, menacing every other customer with a crazed look. The two old women behind Shaw gasped, and a man in the back dropped to the floor.

 

Shaw didn’t move, holding up his glare without an ounce of worry, but the man paid little attention to her. He grabbed the cashier, a young teenage girl who cried out when he pulled her arm, and quickly turned around, holding the girl in front of him.

 

The front door opened, letting a police officer through – a short black woman with her gun out, clenching her jaw at the sight of the hostage. “Don’t do anything stupid Ian,” she warned the man, her eyes glancing from the panicked cashier to the armed man.

 

Ian shook his head, taking a step back and using the girl as a shield between him and the officer. “Drop your gun or I’ll kill her,” he threatened, pressing the muzzle against the girl’s temple.

 

The officer shook her head. “This is the end of the line, Ian,” she repeated his name, probably trying to gain his trust. Shaw sighed – that was not likely to happen anytime soon. That man had the frenzied eyes of someone who has already lost everything. Impatiently, she dropped the few items she had come here to purchase on the counter, and the man turned to look at her.

 

“Don’t move,” he ordered in a panic, and Shaw raised an eyebrow and her empty hands.

 

“Not doing anything bud’,” she shrugged, calm despite his obvious threat. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been shot before. “You gonna shoot a girl ‘cause she dropped a bottle of milk on the counter?”

 

The man blinked, evidently confused by Shaw’s composure. She sensed the two old ladies shifting to hide behind her, and something warm flared up in her chest.

 

It was nothing; just a thug in a grocery store, threatening civilians. A low-life that would no doubt spend tonight – and many others nights after that – in a jail cell. Well, that was if the officer didn’t settle on shooting him instead, but there was something kind in her eyes – something that told Shaw she wasn’t one of those corrupted officers that thrived in the city.

 

“Ian,” the officer grabbed his attention again, before he could get upset over Shaw’s attitude. “Let the girl go.”

 

The guy shook his head, tears forming in his eyes. It looked like he was slowly losing his footing and Shaw wondered how long they had before his finger slipped. She shared one look with the officer and realised she wasn’t the only one sharing that thought.

 

“It’s okay,” the officer told him, lowering her gun slowly. “I know you don’t want to hurt anyone.”

 

Shaw had seen many men like him while she had served. Men who tried to take charge and then panicked... they did a lot of stupid things. Horrible things they had never wanted to do in the first place. The more time passed, the more the chances increased that him or the cashier would come out of that grocery store on a stretcher.

 

Somehow, that wasn’t something Shaw could allow.

 

It was strange how she never cared for people, and yet she felt that urge, that strange desire to protect them. Once, years before, her mother had wondered aloud if by joining the Army, Shaw had been trying to make up for her lack of emotions; as if every good thing she did was a way to apologise for who she was. But Shaw didn’t think that was it, because that need, it seemed to come to her like a reflex. An instinct – something she had been born with.

 

It was just who she was, whether in the woods of Austria or in a New York grocery store.

 

“You’re in a bad place,” the officer nodded, her eyes filled with compassion. It could’ve been just a show, but Shaw knew better; that officer actually _cared_. But she was still doing her job, and holding onto her gun with the resolution of someone who was ready to fire if needed.

 

Shaw moved slowly, without making a sound. Circling around a stack of boxes she winced at the sound of the two old ladies whimpering when they realised they couldn’t hide behind her anymore. But the officer kept the man’s attention away from Shaw; “I would like to help you, Ian.”

 

The man turned angry instead of desperate, yelling that no one could help him now, and something about having lost his son. Shaw wasn’t listening that much to his story; she wasn’t good at this part, defusing someone in crisis. Bombs, she could handle, but people were more complicated than that.

 

Besides, what she was good at – _very good at_ – was sneaking up on people, and knocking them out.

 

It took her all of four seconds to do so, and almost the same amount of time for the officer to rush over. Disarming the unconscious man, the officer quickly turned to the young cashier who was still shaking with sobs.

 

“You’re alright,” she promised her, “you’re safe now.”

 

She glanced at Shaw with a curious look, like she wasn’t sure whether to thank her or scold her. After a few seconds of hesitation, she breathed out a short “thanks” and then dropped to her knees, cuffing up the unconscious man still lying on the ground. She checked his pulse for good measure, all the while turning her attention to the few clients cowering in the back of the store.

 

“Please stay calm,” she asked them before she called in her position on the radio. Once dispatch confirmed that officers were on their way, she stood up again. “I’m going to need your statements.”

 

Shaw stepped forward, but before she had the chance to open her mouth, the officer – _J._ _Carter_ , Shaw could see her name pin now – glared at her. “ _All_ of you,” she added, as if she knew Shaw was going to ask her to leave her out of the record.

 

Shaw’s stomach growled in hunger, and perhaps frustration. She wasn’t one for paperwork, but she wasn’t about to get arrested for refusing to make a statement. With a sigh, Shaw sat on the counter and waited, impatience tingling in her exhausted muscles, the sweat of her run now dry on her skin; uncomfortable.

 

A long, boring fifteen minutes went by before Carter’s backup finally arrived. Two men showed up, joking and laughing like they had no care in the world. They stopped talking when their eyes fell on Carter, her suspect now sitting with his back against the wall.

 

“ _That’s_ what you call back-up for?” one of them asked, raising an eyebrow. He shook his head as if disappointed. “Lady I crush guys like him for breakfast.”

 

Shaw rolled her eyes at his condescending remark.

 

“We need statements from all of them,” Carter pointed out towards the clients and the cashier waiting near the aisles, whose murmurs had stopped as soon as the two officers had stepped in.

 

The second man, eldest of the two, crossed his arms. “Listen mammy,” he sniffed and cleared his throat, his thumbs locked behind his belt, “we’re not your secretaries.”

 

The slur fired up Shaw’s frustrations and she clenched her jaw, wanting to punch someone. During her time in New York she had noticed a lot of people in her neighbourhood being mistreated because of the color of their skin, and Shaw found it was one of the things she simply could not let go.

 

She remembered growing up with white kids curious about her Persian heritage, often to the point of setting her apart from others – like she was an oddity. But never had she felt hatred towards who she was; she appeared to them as exotic and foreign, but not threatening. It was something that nagged at her most times, though it had never been an obstacle in her way, or a reason not to feel safe.

 

“There are ten people here,” Carter replied with a harsh tone, “who very much want to go home.”

 

The taller one shrugged. “Better get started, then,” he retorted, the same dumb grin spread over his face. It was that New Yorker stubbornness that angered Shaw most; that same inflexibility that had caused the citizens to refuse the blackouts during the war, endangering ships at sea with their ignorance.

 

Without another word – but not without another contemptuous huff – they exited the grocery store, leaving Carter to take care of the tedious task by herself. A few clients started speaking up; groans and talk of things to do, places to go, but one angry glare from Shaw silenced them all.

 

Carter sighed as she pinched her nose.

 

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Shaw offered when Carter spared her prisoner a look. For a moment Carter seemed to hesitate, but when the clients started to whine again, she nodded.

 

While Carter gathered the other witnesses’ depositions, Shaw turned to look at Ian. He had stopped sobbing for a few minutes now and stared at the floor beside him with empty eyes. Shaw remembered seeing Cole like this once; the first time a soldier he knew had been blasted off the Earth right beside him. Shaw had kept going, only to find that Cole wasn’t running beside her; as if frozen in place, he gazed at where the soldier had been moments before, dumbfounded. As if his brain – usually so quick to understand – couldn’t make sense of what he had seen. Shaw had been forced to pull him forward for a couple of steps before his survival instincts had finally kicked in.

 

She wondered if that man, _Ian_ , had someone like that – someone who would pull him until he remembered who he was and what he was doing. He didn’t seem like a heartless man; Shaw could see the guilt in his eyes, the shame in using a young girl as a shield. She wondered if he had served – he did not look like a military man, and yet there were ghosts surrounding him.

 

But since she had moved to the city she asked herself that question about just anyone. It wasn’t that she needed the support of other veterans or any kind of human contact, not really. Shaw had never really had friendships or relationships before, anyway. Apart from Cole – and she hadn’t thought that much about him while he was alive, either. It was when he died that she had realised he had meant something to her.

 

It took about an hour for Carter to take everyone’s statement. Hungry and tired, Shaw nonetheless walked with her to her police car, parked a few blocks down. The sun was high and hurting her eyes, and Shaw couldn’t wait to take a shower. At least the owner of the grocery store – who had appeared at the last minute – had offered to pay for her food in gratitude, and for having served her country in the war.

 

It was embarrassing to accept charity, but Shaw had little money, and she rarely, if not ever, said no to free food.

 

“It was incredibly stupid, what you did,” Carter spoke after a minute, her hold still tight on Ian’s wrists; the man had gone nearly catatonic and let himself be led towards his fate without a word. Shaw looked away. “And incredibly brave.”

 

She laughed at that. _Brave_ was meant for sacrifices like Cole’s, or for men like her father. Not for some small brawl in a grocery store. And yet the term wasn’t displeasing to hear, either. “Well I just really wanted to go home,” she shrugged, avoiding Carter’s curious glances.

 

She still wasn’t sure why, exactly, she had stuck around. Why she was walking with Carter now, instead of going back to the apartment. Why she wasn’t more frustrated by all the waiting around.

 

“Some of those clients even said you were _heroic_ ,” Carter continued, a touch of humor in her tone, like she knew the term would make Shaw scowl.

 

On the other side of the street, Shaw noticed the parked police car and guessed her walk was about to end. It was oddly disappointing. “You probably have to deal with those racist asses every day,” Shaw noted, “so I’m not sure who knows more about heroics.”

 

Carter smiled warmly despite the language. She reached without effort for the back door of her patrol car and pushed her suspect in. Ian surrendered without any resistance, the fight having left him for a while now. Once Carter had secured him in, she turned to face Shaw. “You sound like my son.”

 

Shaw wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad one, but judging from Carter’s grin, she guessed it was the former. She shrugged and waved, strangely uncomfortable, taking a step back to leave Carter to her day.

 

“Let me pay you a drink some time,” Carter insisted before Shaw could run back home.

 

One hand hidden in her pocket and the other holding onto her grocery bag, Shaw sent her a puzzled look.

 

“To thank you,” Carter explained. There was something playful in the back of her eyes though, but Shaw found it all the more intriguing.

 

“Yeah, okay,” she hesitated. Pointing towards the pad where Carter had written down the depositions, she shrugged; “well you got my number.”

 

Carter smiled. “I’ll call you.”

 

As she walked home, Shaw wondered if the damn telephone even worked. It wasn’t like it had ever rang before.

 

 

* * *

 

Sam heard the commotion outside her door – a very loud banging on the neighbour’s apartment – _Hanna’s_. Panic exploded in her chest as she quickly jumped out of bed and rushed to see what was happening at four in the morning outside her flat. There, she found three NYPD officers, armed and angry.

 

They didn’t seem to notice Sam as they knocked again, fists closed. Jaws clenched. One of them had his finger on a trigger.

 

The blood seemed to flow out of Sam, making her weak as her heart pounded almost as loudly as that fist on Hanna’s door.

 

“Open up,” they commanded again, the order breaking the night’s quietness enough that other doors slowly turned ajar, curious eyes peeking out.

 

Inside Sam’s guts, a strange worry gnawed at her like a relentless needle, the uncomfortable feeling mixed with expectation as she realised what was happening. She tried to remember to breathe when Mike Laskey finally answered to the policemen stationed outside his apartment.

 

The taller officer identified him immediately, warning Laskey that he was being arrested on the suspicion of treason – amongst other crimes against his country. In front of his pained look, pride flared around Sam’s sternum, bright against the darkness of the poorly-lit corridor. She nearly snarled at his pathetic insistence that he had done nothing wrong, that he was being mistaken for someone else.

 

Sam noticed blonde curls and sleepy eyes appearing behind him and her heart warmed over, her ears turning deaf to Laskey’s complaints. Hanna blinked in confusion as the officers handcuffed her husband. As if she knew Sam was there, she dared to move past the threshold, quick – almost _shy_ – glances searching the corridor for her. For a second or two, Sam had no doubt that Hanna was going to run towards her. That she would bury her face in the crook of Sam’s neck, and wait until the officers had finally left; until the storm had passed.

 

For a second or two, Sam had no doubt that everything was going to be okay.

 

“Mrs Laskey?” an officer asked Hanna instead, his voice forcing the two of them to stop staring at each other.

 

Hanna nodded, as if in a state of shock. Sam’s breath caught in her throat, ice forming around her heart. Both of them blinked profusely, evidently trying to make sense of what was happening, exactly.

 

“You’re under arrest under the suspicion of treason,” the second officer repeated with a harsh voice, as if Hanna herself had been leading the Fuhrer’s forces in Nazi Europe. As if Hanna herself was everything that he had ever considered Evil.

 

Sam felt nauseous at the words, certain she was going to be sick.

 

As the officer grabbed Hanna’s wrists, his colleague handing him a second pair of handcuffs, Sam stumbled down the corridor. Everything seemed oddly slowed and distant, and yet way too real. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but she couldn’t speak. Her eyes found Hanna again – dear Hanna, with water in her eyes and a panic that screamed even through the loud buzzing in Sam’s ears.

 

“That’s not possible,” Hanna insisted just as Sam whispered the same words absently.

 

It couldn’t be. She had built the case herself. Had sent all the right information. Had been adamant about Hanna’s lack of knowledge of her husband’s guilt.

 

“You’ve read your orders wrong,” Hanna breathed out to the uniforms, confused and afraid. She turned to Sam, “tell them,” she begged.

 

Sam felt her throat tighten, her eyes water, her world fall apart.

 

Something snapping in two behind her sternum.

 

“Sam,” Hanna cried out, “Sam tell them I’ve done nothing wrong,” Hanna insisted, the panic seizing her voice in a way that Sam could’ve never imagined. In a way she could never forget.

 

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Hanna went on and on and Sam followed her with her gaze, unable to move, unable to speak.

 

She should have said it was going to be okay. Should have followed her down the stairs and onto the streets. Should have promise everything was going to be all right. Instead, Sam watched from her apartment’s window as they pushed Hanna into the back of a police car, the uniforms barely batting an eye when her head hit the car frame.

 

Helpless, Sam looked at the melting snow banks on the side of the road, her heart pounding louder against her ribcage as she struggled to breathe.

 

And then Hanna was gone.

 

 

* * *

 

It had quickly turned into a routine; two nights a week, after Carter’s shift, they would meet at the bar down the street from the station where she worked. Carter would have a beer or two, a couple more if Carter had managed to get her neighbour to babysit. For someone who didn’t like company, Shaw found herself almost looking forward to those moments – her daily life turning more and more bleak every day. She had found a job in a warehouse; a boring security detail where she did nothing but walk around, clearing empty spaces one after the other.

 

It was worse than working at a factory, and sometimes Shaw wondered if it was duller than being a waitress – not that she’d ever try.

 

Just looking at the way the men at the bar treated the poor thing... Shaw felt like punching a few of them sometimes, but Carter always talked her out of it. A dive like this one, it attracted all kinds of people, and it was better to keep out of everybody else’s business.

 

“Ever thought of joining?” Carter asked over her beer, oddly intrigued.

 

“Already did,” Shaw groaned, pulling her dog tags out of her shirt again. She didn’t really know why she never took them off. Maybe she wanted to remember who she had been before – the fighter she could be again, if she had the chance.

 

“I meant the police,” Carter pointed out with a smirk, as if Shaw should’ve guessed she had not meant the U.S. Army Forces. Especially since Carter knew about Shaw’s service, about her father’s, about Cole’s. In just a few months Carter had slowly pulled them out of Shaw, all those secrets she had always hid from others.

 

Shaw hadn’t minded; Carter’s warmth, her strength, it made up for the lack of privacy between them.

 

She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s my place to be.”

 

It wasn’t that she had anything against the NYPD in particular, but Shaw was reluctant at the thought of putting on a uniform in the morning. Even the cheap one she had to wear for her security job was uncomfortable; the fabric always too restraining, too hot. She needed more space, more air, than any job with a uniform could ever provide. Besides, she dared not think of paperwork.

 

In the back of her mind, Shaw knew she couldn’t continue this way; secretly waiting for the army to reopen its ranks to women again, and at the same time hoping they never would, so that she wouldn’t have to make _that_ choice.

 

But she couldn’t stop.

 

Carter raised an eyebrow. “You _make_ it your place,” she replied almost furiously. “How do you think I survive every shift?”

 

It was brave, Shaw could see that. But she wasn’t as noble as Carter was – or maybe she was too proud. It just wasn’t something she could see herself doing.

 

Evidently it wasn’t like she could see herself as a security guard until the day she’d die, but at least it paid, and Shaw could drop out of it at anytime. To become a police officer meant she would have to undergo another training, and just the thought of it made her sick.

 

“Look, it’s a good thing you’re doing,” Shaw agreed wholeheartedly, especially when she thought about Carter in particular. “But I’m not a good person.”

 

She hadn’t come back from the war traumatized like others. She had come back with some ghosts, yes, but no shame. No guilt. She had done her job and that was it. But now Shaw knew, without an ounce of doubt, that she could easily take a life and not frown upon it. That she could kill someone and never even know their name, and it wouldn’t bother her in the slightest.

 

She would sleep just as well, with all the blood on her hands. Someone like that, someone like her... they shouldn’t be given a badge and a firearm.

 

Carter shook her head, her expression halfway between disappointment and amusement. “You are, Sam,” she insisted, her eyes seeking Shaw’s. “You just don’t know it yet.”

 

It was uncomfortable, to be under such a warm gaze, and Shaw decided to focus on the music instead. Yet the phrase stuck with her for the rest of the night, no matter the change in conversations.

 

“Want to go back to your place?” Carter asked after a while. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wasn’t the last. Shaw nodded quietly and they both emptied their beers without a rush.

 

There was comfort in the knowledge that nothing had to be played, with Carter. Shaw only had to let things happen and run with her, with whatever mood Carter was in, and she always found what she needed. She wondered sometimes if she should ask more questions, try to understand what Carter was getting out of this – apart from sex – but she couldn’t.

 

It had to remain about sex anyway, even though for Shaw it had strangely shifted. It was human contact – not that she usually craved it. But sometimes it irked at her, how empty her life was, how meaningless, and in those nights, having Carter’s hums throbbing against her skin was just enough to fill it.

 

Carter could be soft and then cruel, could be quiet and suddenly loud. She changed every time and Shaw couldn’t adapt or switch as playfully as Carter did; she bucked and got angry and Carter laughed. She didn’t mind Shaw’s grumpy attitude or her frustrated sighs; often she called her out on it and Shaw just shrugged it off.

 

In those moments they were something dangerously closer to _partners_. Almost closer to friends than lovers; two people who had each other’s back, no matter what.

 

As Carter and Shaw walked down the street towards Shaw’s place, she absently wondered if Carter was right about her. If she was a good person, and just couldn’t see it in herself. But she remembered the burning rage inside her as she ran through Austria’s forests, the people she killed for being soldiers. People that had been enrolled like Cole had – even if just a few of them hadn’t done anything to deserve that, it still seemed too much.

 

Some of those soldiers she had killed had been merely older than kids; teenagers who followed orders blindly, like she had. She clenched her jaw, and as if Carter could feel it, she bumped Shaw with her elbow. “Get your head out of your self-pitying ass,” she ordered.

 

Shaw rolled her eyes.

 

“Do you think being a grump puts a girl in the mood?” Carter challenged again as they stepped in Shaw’s bedroom, not bothering with the lights.

 

“Puts _you_ in the mood,” she replied before she leaned in and kissed her roughly.

 

Carter hummed against her lips and then pulled back. “Not tonight though,” she pushed Shaw towards the bed until Shaw fell on the mattress. “Stop thinking,” she commanded again, and pulled on Shaw’s hair for good measure.

 

Shaw wanted to protest, but Carter grabbed the bottle of whisky from her settee, and twisted it open. “Let’s have fun,” she grinned, bringing the bottle to Shaw’s lips. Shaw gulped down a sip or two, her eyes still locked on Carter.

 

Her hands seemed to move without a thought as they ran over Carter’s uniform, fingers slowly undoing buttons.

 

“Okay,” Shaw agreed as Carter replaced the bottle on the settee and untied Shaw’s hair. “Let’s have fun.”

 

Shaw stole the handcuffs from Carter’s belt, and waited for her to nod.

 

Somehow, she always did.

 

 

* * *

 

“Why?” Sam nearly screamed as she entered Finch’s office, her jaw clenched, fists closed.

 

She could feel the shadow of John Reese behind her, the soldier never too far away from Finch’s office, almost like a guard dog. Today however, she paid him no attention.

 

Finch gestured for her to close the door so they could speak in private, but she refused him the privilege. Instead, she bore her eyes into him, standing tall in the threshold. “You had no right,” she hissed in anger.

 

He took off his glasses and let them rest on his desk. “Ms Groves-”

 

“My name,” Sam interrupted, taking one threatening step forward, “is _Root_.”

 

It clashed against the quietness of Finch’s office, the silence that followed turning heavy and thick. Obviously troubled, Finch picked up his pocket handkerchief and started cleaning his glasses; a nervous tick Sam had noticed a while back. But today she had little care for his discomfort – she wanted answers.

 

She wanted Hanna.

 

“Why did you take her?” she accused. Behind her she could hear Reese’s footsteps, walking closer as if he considered her a threat. And considering how enraged and exhausted Sam felt, perhaps she was.

 

Finch shook his head as if disappointed. “We didn’t take anyone Ms-” he stopped himself before he pronounced her legal name, and somehow it only fed Sam’s already burning rage. “The Bureau had enough evidence against the cell, they wanted to make the arrests now.”

 

Something scorched all the way up Sam’s throat as she spoke; “what evidence do you have against Hanna?”

 

Finch sighed, blinking as he replaced his glasses on his nose, evidently feeling more confident that Sam wasn’t in his office for anything other than conversation. A heated one at that, but conversation nonetheless. “I don’t have access to that kind of information.”

 

“Bullshit,” Sam spit out. He was Harold Finch, with bold capital letters. He was Project Venona personified, he was the great king of Arlington and now that she needed him, he was letting her down. Just like everyone else before him. But Sam couldn’t stop there. “I built the case against that cell. I gathered the intel,” she insisted. “Hanna wasn’t a part of it. Ever.”

 

Finch stood behind his desk, oddly small. He limped towards the door and for a moment Sam wanted to hurt him – wanted to make him feel the distress that pulsed inside her chest, louder than her own heart.

 

She pictured it; grabbing his cane and smashing it against his head. Sam wondered if he could hear her thoughts, if he was going to ask her to leave. Instead, he closed the door, Reese standing beside it, quiet and still as a statue.

 

“Perhaps you became too close to your investigation,” he suggested and Sam felt her cheeks reddening under both of their glares.

 

Maybe someone had been spying on her all this time; she wouldn’t put it past them not to trust her. Perhaps, while Sam was keeping an eye on that cell, an operative had been observing her every move. Reporting everything back to Finch.

 

“You do seem quite... taken,” he added almost too politely, walking back to his desk and ignoring her angered gaze.

 

Tired, angry and betrayed, Sam took a deep breath to stop the tears from falling.

 

“I assure you, if there is no evidence against Mrs Laskey, she will be release shortly,” Finch promised.

 

But there was something in the back of his voice. A wavering. A doubt.

 

Something Finch wasn’t telling her. “There is no evidence,” Sam repeated, taking another step forward as he sat down behind his desk.

 

“It’s common for the spouse to be taken in for interrogation, in these matters,” he continued as if a practiced speech. “Just procedure, really.”

 

Sam frowned. There was something odd about him; she could tell. Had worked with him long enough that even when he tried his best, he couldn’t fool her. Not entirely.

 

“You know something,” she leaned over his desk, ignoring the furtive movement of Reese behind her. He treated her like a threat, and Sam wasn’t sure she was upset at the thought. It gave her a rush, the idea that she could put fear in the hearts of these two men she had considered as authority. Almost as _law_.

 

Finch looked embarrassed, a bit sad perhaps. “I heard some rumors,” he confessed with a sigh.

 

He gestured towards the chair, silently asking her to take a seat, and she finally did. Somehow she felt all the weight of her exhaustion now, not having slept for more than a few hours ever since Hanna had been taken, a week ago.

 

“They have a testimony,” Finch finally admitted. “Mr Russell named her during interrogation.”

 

Sam’s mouth turned dry, so much that she thought she was going to vomit right there, on Finch’s desk. The room spun around her and she stood again, shaking her head. It couldn’t be. That testimony was a lie – of course it was a lie.

 

Sam wanted to scream. To shoot Reese with his own gun, simply for standing there. To burn down Arlington Hall with Finch in it. To blow up the White House.

 

Instead, she walked out of Finch’s office without another word and returned to her car, ignoring the stares of her coworkers.

 

It was only when she was alone, safely alone in her car, that Sam allowed herself the thought.

 

Hanna wasn’t going to come back to her.


	9. 1959

Exhaustion weighted down her movements, but at least most of the soreness was gone by now. Shaw ran a hand through her hair, wincing at the thought of a much needed shower. There was no time, however; she had answers to find, and judging by the assault on her office the previous night, the clock was ticking down dangerously.

 

She barely paid attention to the road as she returned into the city with a new stolen vehicle - her third in the course of twenty-four hours, setting a new record. Headed towards the construction site she had visited just a few days prior, she tried to rid herself of the image of an unconscious and tied-up Root, head resting against the heater's pipes. No doubt that she could manage to leave if Shaw didn't return soon, and yet somehow she was convinced Root would still be at the cabin when she'd come back.

 

It was odd, that certainty amongst all those unknowns.

 

It was almost as strange as finding the construction site deserted, even though it was a sunny Tuesday morning. But Shaw had expected it; had been counting on it, as a matter of fact. She climbed up the stairs and reached the second level with a ball of rage twisting her gut, impatience wild. It didn't take long for her to find him in the darkness, raising from his seat as if he had been waiting there for her.

 

That only made Shaw's impatience wilder. “What the hell is going on?” she groaned, almost grabbing Finch by the collar, yearning to push him against the wall and _demand_ answers.

 

Finch blinked nervously and yet raised a hand to calm down Reese, who had already pulled out his gun and aimed it at Shaw's head. “Ms Shaw-"

 

“ _Detective_ ,” she corrected him, clenching her jaw. There was no trekking cautiously now; she had to pounce forward and run through the landmines, and hope that she wouldn't take a wrong step.

 

“Detective Shaw,” Finch nodded. Fear still glinted in his eyes, but Shaw didn’t mind. She was tired of sneaking around for answers, tired of being toyed with. It wasn’t that she was particularly fond of her office and apartment – she didn’t care much about the door being busted open and her things probably being searched, but she damn well deserved to know why government operatives had stormed her place in the middle of the night, and tried to put a bullet through her head.

 

Finch swallowed hard. “I think you need to calm down,” he suggested.

 

Gun tightly held in hand, Shaw groaned. “I am calm,” she nearly barked.

 

Perhaps he had a point – but that was as calm as she would be able to muster at the moment.

 

“I want to know what the hell is going on,” she sneered angrily, feeling Reese coming closer with his gun lowered, but not back in his holster. She almost wished he’d make a wrong move so that she could shoot him in the knee. That would definitely help with the tension in her neck and shoulders.

 

Finch spared Reese a glance, as if searching if he was agreeing with him or not. Like he was trying to determine what he was going to say exactly - but maybe he was just buying time.

 

“I want to know _now_ ,” Shaw insisted, and that brought Finch’s attention back to her.

 

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s rather complicated, Detective,” and yet he nodded, as if confirming that he was going to be helpful. 

 

Shaw took a step back, putting her gun back in its holster in sign of good faith. She doubted that his help would be enough for her to get out of this mess, but it would be a step forward. She just didn't really know where it would lead her, though.

 

“Ms Groves and I used to work together during the war,” Finch started, not noticing the way Shaw flinched at the name. Another alias, maybe - but Shaw imagined it was Root's birth name. “Have you ever heard of MAGIC, Ms Shaw?”

 

Shaw closed her fists; she had rarely ever wanted to punch someone as badly as she did now. Well, there had been Wilson of course, but that was a long time ago. If the little man with the cane was about to talk about magic and fairy tales, Shaw swore she'd make him swallow his damn glasses.

 

“It was a program,” Reese stepped in. “Codebreaking.”

 

So Root was a nerd; Shaw should have guessed.

 

“After the war, it was dismantled, and its assets were retasked,” Finch explained. “Ms Groves joined the Venona project, where she performed quite brightly.”

 

“Arrested a Soviet spy cell in New York,” Reese translated.

 

Shaw frowned. “Like Friedman and the Doll woman?”

 

“More or less, yes,” Finch agreed, and Shaw had to roll her eyes in annoyance. She wanted clear facts, not vague indications of what Root might or might not have done in the past. “Over time, Ms Groves was given one of the highest security clearances, and recently she accessed some files that she should not have seen.”

 

“That was a few months ago,” Reese nodded. "She stole the original files and vanished."

 

 _Not for long_ , Shaw thought - although hiding from the government for months was quite the feat, she imagined. “So she’s... what? A traitor?” Shaw asked. It didn't sit well with her, that idea. Not that she would believe in Root's innocence either; it just seemed  like everything was still out of place. Unexplained, really.

 

“Presumed traitor,” Finch corrected.

 

Root, just like Finch and Reese, was not the kind of person to be trusted; that much had been clear from the start. Then again, Shaw hadn’t trusted her government for quite some time either, so there was really no telling whether Root was a traitor or not.

 

“Why are you here?” Shaw mused aloud. Clearly the operatives that had stormed her apartment had nothing to do with Finch and Reese, who had kept her distance ever since this mess had started.

 

Reese grimaced, and Finch ignored him. “I was hoping to talk to Ms Groves,” he explained, but Shaw heard the question underneath. He had guessed that Shaw was holding her prisoner somewhere, and was asking to see her.

 

Only Shaw wasn’t sure who she could trust, and even though he genuinely seemed well-intentioned, she definitely couldn’t make that call.

 

“I don’t think she’d listen to you Harold,” Reese intervened before Shaw could answer. "She never did."

 

Finch sighed, obviously saddened at the thought. “I have to try.”

 

Shaw frowned, uncomfortable. This wasn’t any of her business, any concern of hers - it had everything to do with Root's past, and nothing to do with her present. A present that was actively trying to kill them both at the moment. “Look, not that I’m against the little reunion you’re trying to have,” Shaw interrupted their conversation, “but I’d rather stay out of it.”

 

She was ready to leave, guessing there was nothing more to learn from Finch and Reese, when Finch's voice stopped her in her tracks. “Would you give her a message for me?”

 

Shaw groaned. It wasn't like she had time for any of this emotional crap. “What?”

 

“Please tell Ms Groves that we are here to catch her if she falls."

 

Rolling her eyes, Shaw left the empty building with a strange pressure constricting her chest.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, I really like this,” Root grinned, sitting on the floor with her hands still handcuffed to the heater's pipe. “Well,” her smile turned into a disappointed pout, “I’d rather it be the other way around, but these days a gal can’t afford to be picky.”

 

Shaw glared at her in annoyance, but Root beamed nonetheless. “What now?” she asked cheerfully, not at all disturbed at waking up in an abandoned house outside of town, having evidently been drugged and tied-up. “Are you going to torture me, Detective?”

 

She seemed so eager, Shaw just wanted to knock her out again, but that would be letting Root win. Instead, Shaw grabbed a chair and sat in the opposite corner of the bedroom, waiting.

 

“Are you ignoring me?” Root asked after a while, her eyes losing a bit of her previous glint, as if she was just realizing now that this wasn’t a game. 

 

When Shaw refused to answer, Root smirked. “You’re cute when you’re focused,” she flirted and Shaw ran a hand through her hair, uncomfortable under Root's intense gaze.

 

“I need information,” Shaw groaned in reply. It was why she had knocked out Root to begin with; she needed her to stop her toying and teasing, and for Root just answer Shaw's questions for once. It wasn't that the government operatives had scared her, but they had been a wake-up call. Whatever Root's intentions were, they were both risking their lives here, and Shaw didn't like flying blind. Especially with those odds.

 

Root sighed and shrugged, as if there was nothing she could do to help.

 

“Who were those guys?” Shaw asked.

 

“I think you’ll find one of them was a women, actually,” Root answered, grinning.

 

Sometime before she had stabbed that agent with a letter opener, Shaw had noticed, yes. She rolled her eyes; since Root wasn't about to volunteer information, Shaw crossed her arms and sat back. "Heard you work for the SIS."

 

Root's eyes widened for a split second. "Worked," she specified. "And how would you know that?"

 

Shaw shrugged, feeling smug from being one step ahead of Root. When she kept quiet, Root bit her lower lip, evidently gauging how much she was willing to share.

 

"It's not a job where I could just _resign_ ," she started. That much, Shaw had no trouble believing. "So I took something with me when I left."

 

Shaw raised an eyebrow; “what did you take?”

 

“Insurance,” Root replied cryptically, a smirk curling up her lips. “I made sure that if they came for me, they couldn’t just take me out. I was careful this time.”

 

 _This time_ ; the two words seemed strangely out of place, like they meant the world to Root and once again Shaw guessed that there was a whole lot that Root wasn’t saying. A whole lifetime of secrets she would probably never divulge; but that wasn't a problem for Shaw. She would most likely never tell Root about Cole or her dad either, or about grieving her mother alone a few years back. Shaw would keep those moments to herself, as they were hers, and hers alone. She wasn’t going to demand that Root would share her past with her either.

 

Some memories were better left buried.

 

"Finch said you stole some files," Shaw continued, ignoring Root's saddened expression. 

 

Blinking, Root tried to sit up straight. "Harold? He's here?"

 

“Looking for you,” Shaw frowned. “You didn’t know?”

 

Root looked away for a moment, as if lost in thoughts. Shaw wondered what was going on between the two of them, but it wasn’t her place to ask. "I know his helper monkey was following me," Root took a deep breath, as if sealing some unspoken vow. She shook her head; "it changes nothing."

 

Shaw waited a few seconds before she continued her interrogation, and tried not to think of how it had somehow turned more into an emotional conversation that she wasn't sure how to handle. "Why did you quit your job?"

 

Eyes suddenly gleaming, Root smirked. "There's someone I need to see."

 

Impatience tugged on Shaw's heart once again, making it hard to stay still. “Look, if you want me to trust you,” Shaw argued, “I’m gonna need more than that vague shit.”

  

Root laughed. “I’m not sure I’m trustworthy,” she confessed.

 

There was pain in her eyes and Shaw wondered what it was like to feel the world as others did. Those emotions that blinded them, that made them act crazy sometimes... Shaw had never really envied them, but she had to wonder, just like anyone would try to imagine how it was like to see the world as someone else. To experience life with another perspective, no matter how messed up the sight.

 

“I don’t do well with feelings,” Shaw sighed. It wasn't an answer or a reassurance, and yet it seemed to calm Root.

 

She nodded, blinking away the tears that had started to form in her eyes.

 

“Give me facts,” Shaw offered. “Something I can work around.”

 

Root flashed a hopeful smile. “And what? You’ll help me?”

 

“I didn’t say that,” Shaw shook her head. She wasn’t sure she could help to begin with – wasn’t sure there was a way out of this one. If the government wanted Root dead... there wasn’t much that they could do but disappear. Besides, she still had no clue as to what Root’s intentions were exactly. Putting her neck on the line for someone else wasn’t exactly the way Shaw led her life, and especially not for someone who had lied to her from the beginning. It was a bit much to ask, and Root seemed to think so as well, as she looked down with reddened cheeks, like some teenager with a crush.

 

Root was pathetic, and emotional, and a liar. She was annoying and ridiculous and the worst flirt Shaw had ever met.

 

She was kind of endearing, in a weird way.

 

"What did you want with Lambert?" Shaw changed the subject, uncomfortable.

 

Grinning, Root stretched her legs on the floor before she crossed them, obviously at ease. "Blackmail," she admitted. "Turns out they freeze your accounts when you become a traitor."

 

“You could’ve just robbed a bank,” Shaw opposed. It wasn't that she hated con artists, but the fake identities and lies seemed like too much trouble when a good old-fashioned theft could solve the problem.

 

“The files I stole, they detail the little trafficking our government's been doing in Indochina. Selling firearms in exchange for drugs, and then cleaning the profits out of the Decima club and a few other places across the country,” Root gleamed, “so this is rather poetic, don’t you think?”

  

Shaw shook her head. “I think it’s a dumbass plan. You’re alone fighting against giants.”

 

Root averted her gaze for a moment, pulling her knees up against her chest. “Well I have you,” she tried, her voice almost shaking as she rested her head against her handcuffed wrists.

 

It was oddly honest and Shaw didn’t know what to do with it. She cleared her throat, awkward. “Fat load of help I’ve been,” Shaw answered, although she thought about Lambert attacking Root, about the operatives storming her office, and knew she had saved Root's life somewhere down the road. But she was starting to lose her footing again in all this mess, and she couldn't be sure whose side she was on.

 

Whose side Root was on.

 

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Shaw guessed. It was there, lurking; as if Shaw could see the tip of the iceberg but not the rest. It hanged in the silence between them, heavy and dark – a secret larger than the others; the real reason behind all of this.

 

“There is,” Root nodded.

 

Well at least she wasn’t lying.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Driving back into the city, Shaw chose to ignore that unsettling sensation that constricted her chest. There was only one way forward now, one path to follow. It would be easy to let the dominoes fall, but tipping the scales, that first step, that one would be the hardest.

 

As she found herself surrounded by familiar buildings she took in the comforting sight. It had been her neighbourhood for years now, and it seemed oddly fitting that everything would start here. She parked her car and headed towards her office, instincts sharp - ready for a fight. 

 

Especially when she noticed the broken-door hanging from its hinges, shards of wood amongst broken glass on the floor. Inside, files had been thrown around, drawers pulled out of the desk and abandoned here and there. Everything that Shaw owned had been inspected and thrown away, and she felt strangely sick as she reached for her bed. Beside the mattress, her father's box laid opened, and yet its contents were intact. Shaw let her fingers drag along the rough fabric of the manganese steel vest before she closed her eyes.

 

Behind her, the footsteps approached ever so quietly. 

 

She slowed her breathing, tried not to clench her jaw as a needle punctured the skin of her neck. Nauseous, her limbs seemingly turned into liquid and Shaw let the darkness swallow her as she fell backwards, her blurry eyes catching a glimpse of blonde curls.

  

When Shaw gained consciousness once again, there was a black hood on her face, keeping her from seeing anything. She felt a little déjà vu as she listened to the silence surrounding her, trying to hear if anyone was there. At least the smell wasn't as awful as that abandoned room in the subway, but the metal handcuffs on her wrists told Shaw that this time, she wasn’t going to be able to run away as easily.

 

Still, she didn’t panic; she had been expecting them, after all. And since Shaw was the only one who knew where Root was, she had no fear for her life – yet.

 

She heard the clicking of heels on cement, and the scent of a strong citrus perfume hovering above her.

 

“Detective Shaw,” a woman’s voice greeted her, and immediately Shaw thought of the blonde operative she had stabbed in her apartment. “So glad you could make it.”

 

Shaw rolled her eyes; some things never changed, and with or without torture, intimidation techniques bored the living hell out of her.

 

The hood was pulled from her face roughly and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. As far as she could tell, they were in an empty warehouse; the cold and dusty air smelled of rust. She wondered if she was still in New York; she had been knocked out rather good. Her neck was sore where the needle had hit, and she could feel bruises on her shoulders and scalp from where she had fallen. Yet apart from that, she appeared completely unharmed.

 

“Wanna tell me whatever this is about?” Shaw croaked, her throat dry. The empty space had no furniture; only walls, and from the smirk on the blonde’s face, she guessed she wouldn’t be offered water to help with the massive headache.

 

The blonde crossed her arms. “This is how you want to play it?” she shook her head, as if a school teacher scolding a disruptive student.

 

“Not really one for games,” Shaw replied, already irritated. This woman wasn’t even _trying_ to interrogate her, and Shaw had gone through the whole trouble to get abducted in the first place. 

 

“Alright then,” the woman circled around her slowly, long fingers toying in Shaw’s hair. It was annoying but Shaw blocked it out, knowing very well what the woman was trying to do; to make her uncomfortable. To push her limits. “Where’s Ms Groves?”

 

Shaw frowned. “I’m sorry, what?”

 

The blonde pulled on her hair angrily; the burning sensation on her scalp somehow strangely relieving her from the headache for a few seconds.

 

“I thought we agreed to no games,” the blonde insisted, leaving her hand on Shaw’s shoulder, standing behind her. “Last time we saw each other,” she purred in Shaw’s ear, “you and Ms Groves were skippin’ town together.”

 

“Oh, you mean Root,” Shaw corrected, clenching her jaw when fingernails dug into her neck.

 

The blonde laughed. “ _Root_ ,” she repeated, leaving Shaw’s back to stand in front of her again, “such a ridiculous name, isn’t it?”

 

Shaw shrugged. She hadn’t really thought about it much; things were as they were, and she tended to just let them be.

 

“Maybe you want to know mine,” the blonde offered. Shaw squinted her eyes; receiving information at the beginning of an interrogation never meant anything good, unless it was done by an amateur. But the blonde definitely seemed to know what she was doing, which meant either Shaw wasn’t supposed to leave this warehouse alive, or she was going to get hurt real soon. And not the nice kind like fingernails in the neck or the pulling of hair; real pain like the one that left scars.

 

The kind that left you without a finger or a limb.

 

Shaw didn’t do fear, but she also wanted to keep every part of her, if at all possible. “Sure, why not,” she said carelessly.

 

The blonde smiled. “It’s Martine,” her white teeth promised violence, “and _you_ are Sameen Shaw.”

 

Shaw nodded - no point in denying the truth now. “I’ve read your file,” Martine grinned, turning around Shaw like a predator. “I’m kind of a big fan.”

 

“So what do you want with Root?” Shaw settled on going straight the point; despite being the one interrogated, she wasn't the target in the middle of this chaos, after all.

 

“She has something of ours,” Martine checked her nails as if this was only business. As if Shaw wasn’t chained to a chair much like she had tied Root to the heater only hours before.

 

Obviously she meant the stolen files Finch and Root had told Shaw about. But Shaw didn’t know their location and somewhere in the back of her head, she congratulated Root for that. Not knowing where they were made it impossible for Shaw to betray her... it was well-played.

 

“She told me about that,” Shaw cracked her neck and sighed. It seemed like the best way to handle this; better to protect herself than to stupidly keep quiet.

 

Martine looked amused. “She told you about how she betrayed her own government?” she questioned with a grin, as if it was impossible. As if Shaw was missing the joke.

 

“Seems to me like you guys don’t like her very much,” Shaw pointed out.

 

“And you do?” Martine asked, her voice filled with overtones.

 

It made Shaw uncomfortable, the silence that followed.

 

“I’ll be honest with you, Shaw,” Martine leaned down, eyes gleaming. “We don’t treat traitors kindly.”

 

Stealing documents that could expose the government's dirty secrets did not equate to treason for Shaw. But then again, she had no evidence to trust Root on what the files actually contained.

 

Martine pulled out a knife from her right boot. "And seeing as you're with her," she ran the side of the blade against her thumb, as if testing the edge, "it seems I'm gonna have to return the favor I owe you."

 

She lifted her shirt enough to show the bandage that covered her wound. Shaw smirked at the sight. "How nice," she mocked.

 

"Unless you'd be willing to arrange a meeting with Ms Groves," Martine started, bringing the tip of her knife just under Shaw's collarbone, "I might have to hurt you."

 

Shaw didn't wince, even as the blade cut an angry red line down her collar. She swallowed hard, focused on her breathing, and waited.

 

Martine laughed. "Oh you're a tough one, aren't you?"

 

Rolling her eyes, Shaw sighed. "Not really," she shrugged, "but if you're done with the show, maybe we can talk."

 

That caught Martine's attention; enough for her to take the bloodied knife to Shaw's throat. “You would betray her,” she doubted.

 

“I don’t owe her anything,” Shaw explained, ignoring the sharp blade just above her jugular. “Root dumped this mess on me,” she added, her eyes digging into Martine's, “I never asked for it."

 

But Martine wasn’t convinced. “You two seemed rather close,” she frowned, her other hand coming to rest on Shaw's shoulder, fingertips brushing against her skin almost intimately.

 

Shaw only laughed. “I’ve never been close to anyone,” she mocked, “I’m not about to start now.”

 

Martine cleared her throat as she stepped back, toying with the knife. “Yes well, your file did mention you had some trouble... communicating.”

 

“I communicate just fine,” Shaw groaned, anger coming back in waves. She didn’t like the idea that they had gone through her soldier file, had read the examinations of the doctors and psychologists who had deemed her fit for duty. Shaw knew they had taken her in _because_ she was harsh and violent – it wasn't something she was ashamed of, but still something that was hers to know, and hers alone. 

 

“With words, I mean,” Martine specified, a glint of amusement colouring her eyes as she tried to get under Shaw's skin – and succeeded, Shaw had to admit.

 

“What I _mean_ is,” Shaw grunted angrily, tired of this charade, “I like my ass alive. I’d like to keep it that way.”

 

Martine smirked. “Well that is something we can both agree on,” she nodded, "for now."

 

“But if I’m gonna do this, it’s gonna be for more than just my life,” Shaw continued, leaning back on chair despite the tension in her shoulders, her wrists still painfully tired together.

 

“And you think you're in a position to bargain?” Martine looked down on her with a devilish grin.

 

Shaw licked her lips absently, feeling one drop of her own blood trickling down her chest. “I got your girl,” she replied with a wink. “And I can get you the files.”

 

With a sigh, Martine gazed at the empty warehouse, as if making her mind about Shaw's offer. “And why should I trust you?”

 

Somehow, it felt to Shaw like the whole mess she found herself into really boiled down to that one and only question, and most importantly, to its answer.

 

“Where has the world gone to if you can’t trust a soldier to do what’s good for their country, right?”


	10. 1951

Shaw’s pulse had yet to return to normal as she threw her legs off the mattress, one hand running through her hair. Trying to steady her breathing, she ignored the fingertips that traced a line over her spine.

 

“She’s just a kid,” Carter insisted again, as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted. As if Shaw hadn’t tried to avoid the subject by pushing her down on the bed roughly an hour before; as if their minds weren’t both still foggy with orgasms. “She needs your help.”

 

With her heart kicking in disagreement, Shaw shook her head. “If it doesn’t pay,” she started, grabbing her pants from her bedroom floor, “then it’s not a job for me.”

 

Ever since she had started this private investigation business, Shaw had followed one rule; get the money before she hit the streets. It had yet to fail her; business was slow, but it helped pass the time. And more importantly, it paid.

 

“Okay,” Carter answered in a voice that meant she wasn’t actually dropping the subject, despite the late hour and Shaw’s obvious stubbornness. Over time, Shaw had grown used to Carter’s insistence. Therefore, she only shrugged when Carter stepped out of her bed to find her purse. “How much?”

 

Shaw rolled her eyes. “I’m not taking your money,” she groaned. In a mirror on her bedroom wall she could see both their reflections; Carter, bent in a corner, and herself, sitting on the edge of the mattress. It was odd, how they didn’t linger at all anymore. Ever since Shaw had met Carter’s son a few weeks ago, there was a rush to their movements that she couldn’t explain.

 

Like they both wanted to bolt.

 

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” Carter reiterated, turning to look at her.

 

Shaw slipped on her pants without a word, ignoring the eyes that burnt holes in her back. Of course Shaw hadn’t forgotten the kid’s importance; that little runaway was one of the first kids to come forward with information about the teenage gangs that proliferated around Brooklyn. Seemingly frightened by the minutia of a trial, Genrika Zhirova had vanished a few days ago, and Carter had been searching for her underage informant ever since.

 

“Kid’s probably long gone,” Shaw argued again.

 

A ten-year old wouldn’t last long in the streets of NYC, especially one that had betrayed the Ellery boys; if the kid knew what was good for her, she would’ve fled the city already.

 

Carter sighed. “Gen’s not like other kids,” she explained, picking up her clothes from Shaw’s floor. She came to sit on the mattress beside her, their shoulders bumping against one another. “I know you’re not...” Carter started, her voice disappearing in the darkness of the room.

 

Shaw swallowed hard, hearing the words Carter would never dare say. Not fit to understand; not able to feel the way any other person would. Not normal, maybe.

 

“I know you don’t do this,” Carter completed instead, one hand landing on Shaw’s thigh, her palm so warm it felt like it was burning. “But I’m asking you to.”

 

There were many things Shaw could do. She could shrug it off and ignore Carter’s pleading eyes; she could reach out and grab that glass of whisky she had abandoned on her settee and numb herself a little more. She could laugh in Carter’s face and tell her to go to hell; she could pull Carter closer and shut her up with a kiss.

 

What she could not do, however, was lower her head, and say yes.

 

Which is exactly what she did, despite her best instincts. “Okay,” she found herself agreeing, her throat closing up on the words almost painfully. “I’ll do it.”

 

Her eyes met with Carter’s then, her ears buzzing oddly as she noticed the relief that floated there. It was warm and grateful and Shaw bit her lower lip, trying to ignore the way her chest flared up with pride.

 

Carter’s eyes darted to Shaw’s teeth. “You will?”

 

Somehow, Shaw had known she would end up agreeing to help the kid, ever since the first time Carter had mentioned her. But it bothered her too much, that automatic response to Carter, how she always caved in. Doing favors, seeing the same person every week, spending time with her, meeting her goddamn kid, it was all too close to a relationship she didn’t want to have. But finding Gen was important to Carter, and so it mattered to Shaw. She couldn’t help it, no matter how many glasses of whisky she downed.

 

“I can’t promise you anything,” Shaw crossed her arms. “Kid’s probably dead already.”

 

She didn’t want to think of the look Carter would have if she returned with bad news – which was very likely at this point. A white kid disappearing in Bushwick wasn’t exactly the worst case scenario, but Gen had been in contact with Carter for a few weeks before now, which would make her a traitor in most gangs’ eyes. Besides, Gen’s parents were Soviets and if the kid had the same accent they did, Shaw had no doubt the gangs wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.

 

“I owe you one,” Carter promised, her fingers toying with the fabric of Shaw’s pants, as if making her mind on something. It wasn’t like Shaw was ever going to cash in on that favor, but the thought was nice. No one had ever owed Shaw anything; she made through on her own, always relying on her strengths and skills only, and never expected anyone’s help along the way. “Anything,” Carter added, mischief sparking up her eyes.

 

As Carter dropped her clothes and moved to straddle her, Shaw smirked. “Don’t go making promises you can’t keep,” she whispered, her hands cupping Carter’s ass to keep her steady.

 

It was familiar, the weight of Carter on her lap, the smell of her perfume mixed with sweat and whisky, the warmth of her skin pressed against Shaw’s.

 

Carter grinned, leaning in. “I never do.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The building stood before her, cold and grey against the morning’s blue sky, almost like a verdict. Sam took a deep breath, her shoes crushing gravel as she walked towards the entrance, eyes blinking.

 

She had never been to a prison before, and her mind ran every jail scene from the few movies she had seen with Hanna, as if her brain was desperate for information on what was to come. Sam remembered she had an uncle – or was it a cousin? – she had never met, that had been incarcerated for years. Something about a life sentence for killing a rich kid with his car; Sam had never been sure whether that story was real or not, but she thought about it almost desperately, as she waited for her authorisation to meet a prisoner.

 

How Finch had managed to get her on the list of allowed visitors, she had no idea. She hadn’t even thanked him; had rushed out to her car and hit the road as soon as she had heard the news.

 

Finch had reminded her repeatedly of the danger she was putting herself into by going there. After all, she was the spy that had betrayed them, Laskey, Russell, Frey and Greenglass; no matter how highly secured her file in Arlington was, it could still have been leaked already. Sam could end up being the target of whatever was left of that Soviet cell by taking this risk, and it truly was foolish, and unnecessary. But no matter what Finch said, no amount of rationality could keep Sam away from this.

 

She needed to talk to _him_.

 

During her drive from Washington to New York, Sam had wondered why she hadn’t asked to see Hanna instead. It was only when she saw him on the other side of the glass in his orange jumper that she really understood why. She couldn’t bear to see Hanna like this – couldn’t have that image in her mind. Hanna in handcuffs, tired and pale, trying to smile at her... Sam wouldn’t be able to handle it.

 

But most of all, Sam was afraid. That Hanna would not want to speak with her; of what she would say if she agreed to see her. Terrified that Hanna would cry; that maybe she wouldn’t.

 

It was too much to think about. But _this_... this Sam could easily handle.

 

Anger. Hate. _Disgust_.

 

She looked at Trent Russell’s innocent grin and wanted to make him bleed. Instead, she sat down with a polite smile.

 

“I didn’t expect to see you, Robin,” Russell gazed at her almost sadly.

 

Sam ignored the warmth in his eyes; it was meant for her alias, for someone who had died two years ago, that night Hanna had disappeared in a patrol car. “I didn’t expect to come,” she answered, pretending to be anxious about her surroundings. She didn’t mind the cement walls, grim lighting and armed guards; those were part of the scenery. No, all she cared for was Russell, and his petty web of lies.

 

He nodded, the black phone pressed against his ear. “This isn’t a place for a woman,” his voice crossed over the line, sending shivers down Sam’s spine. It was cold and detached, despite his charming smirk. It was a smile he had offered to Hanna so many times before; the smile of a man who wanted what he could not have.

 

“I can’t imagine,” Sam shook her head, her eyes watering, “what our poor Hanna is going through.”

 

She had wanted to fake the emotion but it was there, tightening her throat, burning her cheeks. A sadness she had tried to hide for months, had buried inside deep enough that even Finch had stopped asking.

 

Russell agreed with a nod, lowering his eyes. “Did you see her?” he asked, his tone too avid and eager. It cut through Sam’s chest like a knife.

 

“I...,” she sighed. She couldn’t visit Hanna, couldn’t even think of her in such a place, but that wasn’t something she was going to admit aloud, and certainly not to him. “I don’t understand. Why you did what you did.”

 

Russell leaned forward, his head almost touching the glass. “We’re humans,” he promised, his eyes searching hers. “Just humans. All of us.”

 

_Us_ , Sam realised, did not include her. For years she had spent her evenings with the four of them, sipping wine and listening to the radio, joking and pretending to be someone she wasn’t. But all this time, Sam hadn’t been one of them. Not really.

 

Sam frowned, her breath turning short as she stared into Russell’s eyes. “You’re traitors.” she accused, “all of you.”

 

But not Hanna, she wanted to add. Hanna hadn’t been a part of it either, she couldn’t have been. And yet the doubt clawed at her, a toxic fog that choked her every time her thoughts wandered off. Sam had no reason to wonder why she had come here; she knew.

 

She knew exactly where this conversation would lead; yet she couldn’t stop it from unfolding before her.

 

Russell cleared his throat before he sat back in his chair. “Why did you come here?” he asked as if he read her mind.

 

Sam swallowed hard; there was no toying around anymore. No reason to hide anything. “There’s no evidence against Hanna,” she breathed out. His eyes turned sharp, dark and cold. “Only your testimony.”

 

He blinked a few times, leaning forward again. This time, his grin had turned cruel. “You love her,” he whispered.

 

The words invaded Sam almost violently, piercing through her like needles. It wasn’t his place to speak; wasn’t something he ever should have guessed.

 

It had been a mistake to come here. A weakness.

 

But Sam couldn’t help it; she had to ask.

 

“She’s my friend,” Sam answered with a detached voice, although she knew the lie was obvious. There was no point in denying anything, but Sam wanted to keep this truth for herself. Wanted this one, tiny part of her to remain hers alone. Hers, and Hanna’s.

 

Russell looked smug. “You just admitted she’s a traitor,” he raised an eyebrow, obviously amused by Sam’s discomfort. She wanted to kill him right there; pictured herself stealing the guard’s handgun and firing the entire magazine in his head.

 

“I can’t believe that,” she admitted instead.

 

There was still a doubt sometimes, lurking in the back of her mind, and perhaps that was why she hated Russell so much. He had placed that hesitation there, had created it and no matter how much Sam tried to convince herself, she could never be sure. Hanna’s image was tainted now, and Sam didn’t know what to do with that.

 

But Hanna had helped her build her case against the cell, surely not just to save her own life. That wasn’t Hanna; that had never been Hanna. Sam had to believe that.

 

“I can’t lie to the court,” Russell spoke then, and Root wanted to scream.

 

Instead, she turned her eyes cold. “You _are_ lying.”

 

Russell frowned, confused. “What?”

 

“I know Hanna wasn’t involved,” Sam continued, feeling whatever was left of her Robin alter ego slowly vanishing from her face. “She was never there when you, Laskey and Greenglass discussed the Shooting Star, and it wasn’t her handwriting on the note they found with the proximity fuse. You lied.”

 

“How did you see those notes?” he asked, voice shaking slightly.

 

“I know everything, _Trent_ ,” she spit out his name in disgust. “You’re trying to save your pathetic life by giving them Hanna.”

 

Russell’s expression changed again, his eyes gleefully mean as he snorted. “You’re the one,” he looked up to the ceiling and laughed as he realised who Sam really was. When his gaze returned to her, it was cold and angry. “You were spying on us.”

 

Sam didn’t answer. Her heart beat against her chest so loudly that she feared it would stop.

 

“You’re the one responsible,” Russell continued. “It’s your fault she’s locked up, not mine.”

 

Even hours later as she drove back into the city, Sam couldn’t shake off those words. Somehow, it was the only truth that mattered now, one that she could never forget.

 

“ _It’s your fault; not mine._ ”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Alhambra Theatre sat at the corner of the street like a lazy king on his throne. Shaw glared at it from her car, a sigh locked in her chest. She had been tracking Gen for three days now, and Shaw was growing tired of searching for the brat. From what she had gathered so far, Gen didn’t have much of a family; with the death of her parents a while back, all she had left was a cousin that seemed like he preferred to powder his nose rather than playing house.

 

Shaw wasn’t one to pass judgement on that, but it wasn’t really what was expected of a tutor, and she took the time to explain him that – mostly by punching him a couple of times. It had helped calm down the anger inside, but only slightly. Besides, that had been two days ago; her frustration had grown considerably since then.

 

This _Gen_ seemed like quite the challenge to handle. She was a quick one, and Shaw could tell she had no intention of going back home. The kid was conning people here and there, slowly getting herself enough money to leave town for good – and Shaw couldn’t allow that. Not before the Ellery trial. But she couldn’t exactly send Gen back to her cousin either, or lock her up in police custody. Shaw had settled on crossing that bridge when she would get to it, fighting off the thoughts of setting up a bed on her office’s couch.

 

For now, her mission was to get Gen and keep her from skipping town.

 

And that... well it was easier said than done.

 

Shaw had managed to track her down to the Alhambra Theatre, which had closed a few months back. The empty building had rapidly turned into a home for the Halsey Bops, one of those teenage street gangs that ran around Brooklyn beating up other kids. Hanging out with them could only mean trouble for Gen, but Shaw guessed they had no idea she used to run with the Ellery boys.

 

Gen more than likely hadn’t told them how she had named those teens to the police after they had shot a twelve-year-old for sitting in the wrong park.

 

Double-checking her gun, Shaw winced before she left her motorcycle in the alley, headed towards the theatre’s fire escape.

 

Empty places in Brooklyn were usually filled with homeless people at this hour, and she wished the theater would, too. It was a peaceful crowd that Shaw often dealt with, looking for a junkie in relapse or a gambler hiding from their debts. She had never found a kid amongst them – most teenage runaways ended up in those idiotic gangs instead –, but Shaw guessed the anonymity of that homeless crowd would’ve been a better option for most of them.

 

A less clean option, she noted as she found the theatre in a relatively good state, lacking that filthy smell that came with most vagrants she had met, but also less violent. Artisanal zip-guns weren’t just likely to kill; they also promised a lot of pain, and they were the Halsey Bops’ specialty.

 

She found the teenagers sitting on the theatre seats down below, laughing at two boys pretending to fight on stage. Unnoticed, Shaw walked a bit closer to the edge, trying to find her girl amongst the crowd.

 

“I hear you’re looking for me,” a kid said just behind her.

 

Shaw turned around to find curious eyes peeking behind curly blonde hair. The brat herself, Shaw recognised Gen from the few pictures she had seen, with arms crossed, and staring at Shaw like she wasn’t impressed one bit. Shaw could understand why – it had taken her way too long to track her here, and even now that she was around, the kid had managed to sneak up on her.

 

She wasn’t doing a very good job – then again, she wasn’t paid to do it at all.

 

“Genrika Zhirova?” Shaw asked, even though she was already sure of the kid’s identity. Still, it seemed like the only thing to say.

 

The kid glared. “Gen,” she corrected, annoyed. “You a cop?”

 

Shaw almost smiled at the mistrust, but she remembered it was Carter that had sent her after the kid – Carter who was doing a fantastic job of redeeming her whole department by being the kindest soul to walk amongst them. “No,” Shaw shrugged instead. “A friend of Carter’s.”

 

“Figured,” the kid replied, biting her lip and looking away. Not for the first time, Shaw wondered what had happened after Gen had talked to Carter and agreed to be a witness against her gang. What had freaked her out at the police station, enough to make her weary of any other cop – but then again, kids in street gangs never really played along well with uniforms.

 

“How come?” Shaw questioned, without really knowing why. There was something about that kid... maybe the way she had run, the way she had escaped surveillance for so long. It was annoying, and yet endearing.

 

Instead of knocking her out and locking her in the trunk, Shaw was inclined to actually talk to her. Her mind went back to the couch in her office, absently wondering if she had spare blankets. It was disconcerting, at best.

 

Gen shrugged. “Cops don’t come here,” she gazed at the teenagers gathered on the level below them.

 

Everyone knew the Halsey Bops liked their guns, and there was quite the crowd down there. All kids, but enough of them to feel threatened, and Shaw knew that cops – and most outsiders, really – weren’t welcomed here. She remembered Carter telling her stories of officers that had crossed paths with the Ellery and Halsey gangs, and how they ended up in the hospital with broken bones, missing a few pints of blood. One of them had been blinded; another was still in a coma.

 

“You’re here to bring me back?” Gen asked tentatively. She seemed confused, as if she wasn’t sure which way to go.

 

No matter how clever she was, Gen was still a child, and for a moment Shaw wondered what she was going to do with her, really. If she should just leave her be, since she wasn’t fit to take care of anyone, and especially not a kid. But the more she thought about it – the coldness of the empty theatre, the laughter of the boys below, the disturbing image of Gen holding a zip-gun, and the more Shaw knew there was no chance that she was going to leave her here.

 

“Not really,” Shaw told her in all honesty. “I don’t really know what to do with you yet.”

 

Gen frowned. “What makes you think I’ll go with you?”

 

The crowd of kids downstairs was starting to move; Shaw could sense their attention turning towards her. It was like a swarm of bees catching wind; she kept her eyes on the kid, ignoring the prickling stares that fell on her. She had no panic, no fear; she only held Gen’s gaze, and breathed down deeply.

 

“This isn’t what you were looking for,” Shaw told her without a doubt.

 

Gen shook her head. “You don’t know what I’m looking for.”

 

Shaw let through a smile, even as she noticed the teenagers downstairs rising from their seat, hailing her with insults she didn’t quite catch. “I don’t think you know either, kid.”

 

Holding her breath, Gen swallowed hard before she let out a long sigh. “Okay,” she surrendered, the echo of angry voices starting to reach them. “Let’s go.”

 

“No goodbyes?” Shaw asked as she led them both out of the building, climbing down the fire escape, her movements rushed. It wasn’t that she was afraid for her safety or even Gen’s, but getting into a fight with twelve-year-olds just seemed... tacky.

 

Gen jumped down on the asphalt beside Shaw. “Only came here to hide in plain sight,” she shrugged before she pointed towards Shaw’s motorcycle. “That your ride? Sweet.”

 

As annoying as kids could be, maybe that brat wasn’t _that_ bad.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The constant chatter in the courtroom was so loud that Sam wanted to scream, as if her voice could pierce through the thick cloud it formed above her head and finally bring silence. She desperately needed the quiet, as if the noise only rushed the chaotic thoughts that wouldn’t leave her alone. Sam wanted them to stop talking about their wives and kids and daily lives as if everything was alright with the world. As if this trial wasn’t so very wrong.

 

They didn’t, of course; journalists, lawyers, witnesses, they were all chatting each other up, waiting for another day of witness depositions. _The trial of the year_ , they said. _Spies amongst us_ , they wrote. A few rows in front of Sam, a man was drawing Hanna’s face.

 

There had been a time where Sam had thought of Hanna as a work of art to be revered, but that drawing, no matter how good it was, Sam would rather have it burn. Instead it was meant to be printed in a thousand copies, pages that would be forgotten on street corners or end up in dumpsters all over the city.

 

She sat on the uncomfortable wooden bench that strangely resembled the ones from Bishop’s church. Waiting for the trial to begin wasn’t so different than mass; trapped, small, insignificant, Sam had no choice but to wait for the sentence of a man that had no right to hold that much power over her soul. Under that high ceiling, Sam had no authority, no voice.

 

Here, she could only watch as they spun lies about the woman she loved. The woman she had wanted to save, and protect.

 

The woman she had betrayed.

 

Around Sam the conversations carried on like a storm and she waited, dry mouth and worry clawing at her gut, lungs burning in anger and hate. They were going to pay for this – no matter what happened, no matter the decision of the court – they were all going to pay for this.

 

She dug her nails into the varnished wood and clenched her jaw.

 

Waiting. Biding her time.

 

It took an hour before everyone was seated and ready to start, and Sam already felt like she had been here forever. And yet when they brought in Hanna, Sam’s heart skipped a beat, as if the damn organ had forgotten where they were, how long they had been separated.

 

Pale, Hanna pulled herself forward slowly, her eyes staring at the floor with despair. As if one last resort she looked up, gazing at the crowd searching for someone, and she found _her_.

 

Sam, staring right back at her.

 

In those eyes Sam found confusion and fear, hurt and betrayal. She saw everything she had tried to ignore, everything she had tried to forget.

 

It was her fault if Hanna was here. Without Sam, Hanna would have lead another life; a longer one, sadder perhaps, but healthier. Maybe she would have had kids, running around the backyard, getting themselves in trouble. Little blonde heads with their mother’s smile.

 

But Sam had stolen that from her. She had come to New York and destroyed everything in Hanna’s life.

 

Sam averted her eyes.

 

Hanna didn’t say anything during her trial; even when they questioned her, she refused to speak. They took it as an admission of guilt, but Sam knew better – or at least, she hoped it wasn’t that. She imagined Hanna didn’t want to betray what Sam and she had been to one another, didn’t want to confess anything that didn’t belong to them. And no matter how Sam had wanted to scream before, she strangely agreed. What had happened between them... perhaps it was better left unsaid. Perhaps it was better to keep it inside, untainted, if at all possible.

 

For days, Hanna’s gaze never fell on Sam again. She kept her eyes on the floor or on the Bible they asked her to swear on. Her every movement seemed tiring and empty, and she had the eyes of someone who knew she had already lost.

 

It made Sam’s heart ache as she watched, powerless, the woman she loved turning into a ghost.

 

In comparison, her husband Mike looked very much alive. He spoke and spat and got angry at every question; he went from polite conversation to blasphemy in the twist of a sentence. He looked like a devil dipped in holy water, and Sam had no pity for him; only disdain.

 

But no testimony enraged Sam more than Russell’s. He sat in the booth with an angelic smile glued to his face, and confessed everything so earnestly. _Yes_ , he had been spying on the US forces’ latest acquisitions. _Yes_ , he had been paying Laskey to gather information at the Gabreski airport. _Yes_ , he regretted his actions – but he had no choice in the matter. Had been enrolled young. Had feared for his life. Had wanted to protect his wife – he was recently married, you know?

 

He was guilty, _yes_ , but it most definitely wasn’t his fault. He was a good man who had strayed from the righteous path. He asked for forgiveness. Begged for second chances.

 

Sam didn’t believe any of that – unlike the rest of the country. In newspapers, on the radio, his story turned into one of a victim, of a poor man who had been forced to do the unthinkable. A man who was oh so sorry for his actions, and ready to accept his punishment.

 

Only Sam knew it was all a farce; a repentant man wouldn’t lie about Hanna’s implication, just to throw someone else in his stead. She understood how this worked all too well; in exchange for his testimony against Hanna, whatever sentence he wasn’t going to get, she would have. It was a simple deal, really: the government wanted to make an example out of the Laskeys, and Russell wanted his freedom back.

 

The trial was just for show, and everyday Sam turned up to watch anyway, holding onto the hope that maybe someone would see through the cloud of lies.

 

It took days of meaningless debates before the jury finally settled on a verdict, but Sam already knew. It was a lost cause, and she had been a fool to wish for anything else.

 

 

Someone in the courtroom cried out, the voice oddly similar to Hanna’s, and the sound lashed at Sam’s chest like a dagger. _Hanna Laskey, born Frey: guilty._

 

But weren’t they all?


	11. 1959

Sitting on her motorcycle and staring down the club’s larger-than-needed sign, Shaw’s focus wasn’t unlike the full awareness she had all those years ago in Austria, crouched in the bushes while spying on an enemy camp. Only this time she was on American soil, alone and unarmed, and Cole’s death had long been avenged. She took a deep breath before she finally stepped forward, crossing the street in a rush, barely avoiding traffic.

 

Inside, a music band promised an inebriated crowd that none of them would forget the night to come, and Shaw raised an eyebrow.

 

It wasn’t false.

 

In front of her, a six-foot tall bouncer crossed his arms, the flexing of muscles completing his threatening posture. Not that it intimidated Shaw; she rolled her eyes and walked right past him; there was no time to trouble herself with the help. She was here for one reason only, and couldn’t stray from it. There simply was no time.

 

The man she was looking for was sitting at the bar. In civilian clothes he seemed strangely alien; not at all like the officer Shaw had knocked unconscious in an abandoned subway station.

 

“I’m here to talk to your boss,” Shaw told Simmons right away, pulling the stool next to his before she ordered a whisky, neat.

 

If Simmons was surprised, he hid it very well. Barely glancing towards her, he cleared his throat. “Lambert’s dead,” he shrugged, obviously not grieving. “But I’ve a feeling you already knew that.”

 

Shaw smirked. “There’s a lot I know that you don’t,” she answered.

 

A quick look around confirmed what she had already guessed; without Lambert his men were unfocused, scattered around the bar in a pitiful attempt to survey the crowd, constantly on edge. Afraid of what Shaw was going to do next – it wasn’t a bad position to be in.

 

Too bad it couldn’t last for long.

 

It took a few seconds before her drink was tossed in front of her. The barman had suspicious eyes and a crooked smile, but Shaw only noticed the twitch in his right hand whenever he got close to the cash register. There was a shotgun strapped under the counter – his tension promised that.

 

Shaw made a mental note before she sighed. “So, I guess you’re in charge now?”

 

“I am,” Simmons answered with a shrug, a glint of pride in his voice.

 

All things considered, it seemed like good news for Shaw. After all, she liked a man she could knock out with one hit. His eyes started at the bottles of alcohol neatly placed against the wall, vodka twirling in his glass. Shaw mimicked his posture, a smug grin spreading on her face as she noticed the annoyance creeping on his.

 

“You won’t get a lot of love around here,” Simmons threatened, but when Shaw didn’t budge, he tried another approach. “Got a deal to make?”

 

“I got some things you want,” she answered cryptically, sipping her whisky. Her heart had started beating more loudly, as if trying to rise over the band’s music. It was disconcerting, this rush that felt like adrenaline, even as she was simply sitting at the bar and having conversation.

 

But it wasn’t a problem, not really; Simmons couldn’t hear her heartbeat. “We don’t need you to get the girl,” he argued with disdain, like Root was some kind of disease he’d rather never mention. It was still a lie, and he confirmed as much when he added that every one of his men out there was looking for her.

 

On every street corner, a man with a picture of Root in his pocket, and a bullet meant for her – and still Shaw didn’t feel threatened.

 

She felt like laughing. “You won’t find her,” she sipped her whisky and licked the traces of liquor off her lower lip. “She’s sly, that _dame_.”

 

There was just enough derision to hook Simmons. His irritated expression turned into a frown as he leaned towards Shaw ever so slightly. “Then what?”

 

Shaw spared a glance towards the crowd gathered in the bar. Hundreds of strangers that came in here every week, unknowingly encouraging money laundering. Money that had blood on it, from all the way across the world; it had to stop.

 

But money was money, and over everything else, Shaw was tired of playing someone else’s game.

 

“Seems to me business is good,” she commented, returning her focus to Simmons.

 

Out of his police uniform, he almost seemed like a common civilian – the way a father or a son would look. But Shaw wasn’t fooled. “It’s a shame wars gotta end,” she continued, her eyes digging into his.

 

It was a thinly veiled threat, one he did not seem to understand right away. But Shaw had seen plenty of crooks in the last few years, and all of them thought they would be crowned king of New York City. One after the other, either the police got to them, or some bigger fish swallowed them whole. Here, the wheel was always spinning, and no one could be on top for long.

 

Sure, it helped that for now, Lambert’s – now Simmons’ – organisation had the implicit help of the police and army forces. “Trust me; when war ends, priorities change,” Shaw reminded him.

 

Simmons grimaced. “We got things under control,” he replied as he averted his eyes.

 

He was old enough to have seen the world change after the last great war; enough to know there was nothing certain about his future. War changed countries, and it changed people.

 

It changed governments, too.

 

“And how do you suppose you could help with that?” he grunted almost unwillingly. He sipped his vodka and grimaced, and Shaw wondered whether it was at the drink, or the obligation of listening to what a woman had to say about his business.

 

Having to trust someone like Shaw so that he could live another day.

 

But Shaw had no time to seize him better; the clock was ticking. “Girl had some intel a lot of people don’t want seeing the light of day,” Shaw explained, lowering her voice, even though she doubted anyone but Simmons could hear her over the sound of the music drunken conversations happening all around them.

 

It was why Shaw hadn’t bothered checking if she had been followed by an operative or not. Either way, things would work out just the way she wanted them to – or she’d get a bullet in her head.

 

It was comforting to know the options were limited. Made the choices easier.

 

“Let me guess,” Simmons cracked his neck, “ _you_ just happen to know where it is.”

 

His tone was a bit playful; like he doubted what Shaw was saying. It was a lot to give away, Shaw had to agree with that; an offer almost too good to be true. But Shaw hoped he was just condescending enough to trust that she would be honest.

 

“That, I do,” she finished her whisky in one gulp, tired of playing that game. It was time for him to cave in. “For the right price, I’d be willing to share.”

 

His frown twisted into a smirk. “Of course,” he nodded absently. Shaw could almost feel the cogs working, how he was trying to plan what to do next. “But what’s keeping me from getting it myself?”

 

It was a threat; that much was obvious. Shaw laughed; “what, you think I don’t have back-up out there?” She truly didn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. No one in their right mind – especially not a woman, Shaw had thought – would come to face those men without some kind of security net.

 

Expect Shaw had never been in her right mind. “Look, you got cash to spare, I got your insurance policy when things go sour with your friends from upstairs.”

 

Shaw stood up, one hand still leaning against the counter. If Simmons wasn’t going to agree now, he never would, and she had other places to be. A whole new life to prepare for.

 

“How much?” he asked, surrendering. His voice was bitter and cold, just like Shaw had expected it to be.

 

After that, everything fell into place rather quickly.

 

Which was good, because Shaw had just over eighty-five minutes before everything would go to hell.

 

She grinned as she returned to her motorcycle – all in all, watching the dominoes fall was way better than putting them in place.

 

 

* * *

 

One hand at Root’s waist, Shaw pushed her ahead, towards the Decima club’s door. The street had fallen into slumber, and under the moonlight and the faint orange of the street lights, no one would notice the way the handcuffs glistened. Root hadn’t spoken a word, which would have bothered Shaw if she hadn’t been so close to the end of it all.

 

As soon as she opened the door Shaw shoved Root passed the threshold, not bothering with being nice or careful. Root rolled her eyes and muttered something about liking how hands-on Shaw was being. Some nonsense that Shaw ignored, her instincts on edge.

 

So many things could go wrong now, so many details that could derail all her plans. She had two cards she could still play, but they were the last ones.

 

With a briefcase secured in one hand, Shaw pulled out a gun with the other. Root pulled in a sharp breath at the sight, but continued forward as she had been instructed.

 

Around them, the club was silent. Closing time had already came and went, leaving behind a sense of dread or emptiness. But that didn’t bother Shaw; what bothered her were the four armed men standing by Simmons’ side, glaring at her.

 

She could always use Root as a shield if things came to that, but it still seemed like Shaw would be better off avoiding a shootout.

 

“I see you brought a friend,” Simmons sneered, looking down on Root like she wasn’t even human.

 

That sparked something inside, sending bile up Shaw’s throat, finger itching at the trigger. “Got your files,” she dropped the briefcase on a table, ignoring him and the urge to punch his smile right off his face.

 

“Straight down to business,” he noted with a head tilt. “I like that.”

 

Root’s eyes went from the briefcase to Shaw. “I thought _I_ was the exchange,” she blinked, confusion mixing with frustration. “You can’t give him that,” she warned Shaw, panic slowly creeping in her voice.

 

Shaw glared at her, but didn’t add anything, turning her focus back to Simmons.

 

“It’ll just make things worse,” Root insisted before she stepped forward, trying to grab the briefcase from the table – as if she had any power in this situation. Shaw dug her fingers into Root’s arm, pulling her back.

 

“Worse for _you_ , maybe,” Shaw mocked.

 

In Root’s eyes, hurt swelled with a cloud of anger.

 

Simmons reached for the briefcase. “This little minx isn’t too happy with you,” he laughed as he opened it, going through the files as if ensuring they were the real deal.

 

But even then, Root ignored him, her entire focus still on Shaw, as if nothing else mattered but her. It made her itch uncomfortably. “I’m serious,” Root continued, her bounded wrists twisting so she could get a hold of Shaw’s arm, “this is treason.”

 

Something in the way Root spoke made the sentence feel like yet another iceberg – Shaw could see the tip, but nothing underneath the waters. She clenched her jaw and tried to ignore the burning in her chest – hate for Simmons and his men, and something else for Root. A sensation Shaw would rather never have felt, to begin with.

 

“They kill people for this,” Root added, a tear now running down her cheek. Shaw swallowed hard as Root’s pained voice broke; “Shaw, they’ll kill _you_.”

 

Shaw cut her off before she could continue to argue; “are you done?”

 

Blinking, Root let go of Shaw’s arm, taking a step back. Her eyes had switched yet again, looking at Shaw as if she didn’t know her anymore.

 

But they had known each other for only a few days, Shaw reminded herself. Root had never really known who Shaw was, just like Shaw had never really found that person under all those aliases.

 

Root was no one. Had no significance in Shaw’s life, not really.

 

Shaw stopped paying her attention then; after all, Root wasn’t the one holding power over her right now. The five armed men glaring at her were – and Shaw wondered if they were all police officers like Simmons, desecrating the uniform every day. She couldn’t help but think about Carter, who wanted to make this city a better place.

 

Who wanted to do what was _right_.

 

And all her efforts were ruined by men like these. Acid scorched her throat, but she swallowed it down once again. “Where’s my cash?” she spit out.

 

“I think you’ll want to give them for free,” he smirked.

 

Shaw took a deep breath. This wasn’t happening. “I don’t think so,” Shaw shook her head, lifting her gun to aim at his head.

 

Simmons raised an eyebrow. “There’s one of you,” he answered, “and five of us.”

 

This time, Shaw’s smile wasn’t forced – _fine_ , if they wanted to have it that way, Shaw could play that game too. “I like those odds,” she replied with a devilish glee. After all, she hadn’t been in a decent gunfight in such a long time.

 

One man behind Simmons cleared his throat, “boss, she’s _mad_.”

 

Simmons laughed as if that was the most delightful thing he had ever heard. “Yeah, she is,” he agreed, his eyes still locked on Shaw. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “Okay boys, give her the money.”

 

Shaw smiled – of course Simmons would go for the easy way out, especially knowing that her first bullet would blow his brains out.

 

One of Simmons’ men stepped forward, dropping a briefcase on a nearby table. He opened it before turning it around, revealing its contents. In that one briefcase, there was more money than Shaw had ever seen in her life, and it would all be hers to spend. No more wondering how to make rent – no more boring cases to endure. Shaw could do whatever she wanted to – even though she wasn’t sure what that was, yet.

 

At least, with that kind of money, she’d have plenty of time to figure it out.

 

“Shaw,” Root insisted again, this time her voice colder. Shaw recognised the tone; resolved desperation. The kind of intonation a soldier had before they ran into battle with the certainty of drawing their last breath. But no matter how many times Root would beg otherwise, there was no going back now. “Please, you can’t do this.”

 

Shaw clenched her jaw, feeling her cheeks reddening as the five men stared at her. Root’s eyes dug into her and she wanted to smack her.

 

“This isn’t _you_ ,” she tried again, almost helpless. A frail voice that pricked Shaw’s skin. “Please just listen to me-“

 

“Will you ever shut up?” Shaw burst, turning around to face her. Her gun felt heavier than before and Shaw didn’t need to think for it to aim at Root.

 

Root shook her head, eyes still filled with water. “I can’t let you do this.”

 

Shaw’s frustration turned into a wicked smile. “You have no power here,” she told Root, leaning forward. “In fact,” she winked, “I think you got somewhere else you need to be.”

 

She pulled the trigger three times; a small triangle just over Root’s heart. Her body hadn’t even fell to the floor that already Shaw’s attention returned to Simmons, whose eyes had widened in surprise – and maybe a little fear at what Shaw was able to do.

 

“And now,” Shaw grinned, “the fun _really_ starts.”

 

Both the front and back entrance doors opened just as Shaw grabbed the briefcase with the files. Shoving it in Simmons’ face and breaking his nose, she smiled; “I think that’s yours.”

 

One more hit left him dumbfounded enough for her to shove the briefcase in his hands. Dropping to the floor quickly, Shaw felt a bullet crossing the air above her head.

 

Turning around, she noticed Martine making her way in, as agile as ever. Simmons’ men had started firing back at the government agents and Shaw used the momentum to finally secure the money in her arms.

 

“Check Ms Groves,” she heard Martine’s orders. “That’s mine,” Martine informed Simmons, one eye on the briefcase Shaw had given him. In the blink of an eye, Martine’s bullet blew Simmons’ brains out.

 

Shaw smirked; that operative wasn’t so bad after all.

 

From where she was, Shaw could bolt out of Decima from either entrances, but she guessed Martine hadn’t forgotten about her. As Simmons’s men hid behind the cabaret tables and fired at the two operatives who had made it to the bar, Shaw crawled towards the front, money in hand.

 

In the middle of the rain of bullets, Martine moved gracefully, dodging shots and getting closer to the centre of the bar, where Root lied down only meters away from the files she had sworn to protect, in the end. Shaw didn’t dare look at her again and continued to move, her heart beating wild.

 

It happened then; taking most of them by surprise. All the lights were killed in a snap, blinding operatives and thugs alike. Shaw lifted herself from the floor and made it to the exit rapidly, running through the tables before the gunfight started up again. She smirked – had to admire good timing.

 

Finally reaching the alley, Shaw found herself shoved against the brick wall. Before she could retaliate, she felt a muzzle digging in her neck.

 

“Leaving so soon?” Martine cooed.

 

Shaw groaned; “wasn’t really my party.”

 

Laughing slightly, Martine pushed her gun further into Shaw’s skin, hindering her breathing.

 

“You got your girl,” Shaw told her, struggling to stay upright. “And the files.”

 

Martine’s hold relaxed ever so slightly. “Ms Groves is dead, thanks to you,” she grimaced.

 

“She pissed me off,” Shaw shrugged, her eyes glancing at the operatives’ van lurking down the alley. No doubt the money she had asked for was in there, but there was no way of knowing if it had been left unprotected when the shootout had started.

 

Martine bit her lower lip, nodding. “Alright,” she stepped back. “A deal is a deal,” she agreed, both voice and composure so calm despite the fact that her men were still exchanging fire inside the club.

 

From her hand dangled the briefcase with the files, and Shaw frowned. Something was wrong.

 

Grinning, Martine winked before she pulled Shaw towards the van. In the back of the vehicle she dug out a black suitcase and offered it to Shaw. “And now,” she reached for a small device, “fireworks.”

 

Not a second after she pressed the button, a loud explosion deafened Shaw. She looked down the alley to find the Decima club shred to pieces, flames licking its ruins harshly against the night sky. Blinking, Shaw noticed the darkness surrounding them – the entire neighbourhood had been blacked out, and right in the center of it, the Decima club burned so brightly that it ached to gaze at it.

 

Shaw tried to ignore the way her stomach twisted at that. Instead, she walked towards her getaway car, a little further down the alley.

 

“If I see you again,” Martine warned her, “I’ll shoot you.”

 

Spinning around to look at her one last time, Shaw laughed. “You’re welcome to try.”

 

 

* * *

 

The air was still thick with smoke and smelled like gasoline, but Carter wasn’t sure whether that was her imagination or if someone had really used gas to scorch down the Decima club.

 

“So you were first on scene,” Detective Fusco asked, safely standing in the middle of the street where fire trucks occupied most of the space.

 

Carter nodded. “At twenty past three.”

 

Fusco looked at the firemen extinguishing what was left of the flames, sighing. “What a mess,” he commented, weary. It took a few seconds before he turned to Carter again. “Notice anyone leaving the place?”

 

“No sir,” she answered, one hand sitting on top of the firearm she kept at her waist. Tension flared in her neck as she thought of the hours that still separated her from dawn.

 

Crossing his arms, Fusco frowned. “What were you doing here alone?” he asked, something strangely akin to worry creeping into his voice. “You ain’t got no partner?”

 

Carter shrugged. That was old news for her. “Working alone at the moment, Detective.”

 

In her first years as an officer, she had been outraged at that. Now, it was part of her life – something she just had to live with.

 

“You doin’ the graveyard shift on your own?” Fusco commented, blinking. He sounded impressed. “I kinda like you,” he admitted.

 

Carter rolled her eyes – five neighbourhoods had lost electricity, there had been an explosion in the heart of the city, and still Fusco found time to chat like they weren’t surrounded in chaos.

 

 _Idiots_ , her colleagues all were. But she didn’t mind this one as much though; he was kind, she could tell.

 

“You know, if you ever want to change stations,” he kept his eyes on the ruins of Decima, “I’m looking for a partner.”

 

He still didn’t look at her when he added, with a grimace. “I might need someone like you.”

 

 

* * *

 

By now it was almost a familiar place, and Shaw winced as she stepped inside the empty building. She wondered how Finch always managed to know she was coming to meet him here – of course he didn’t spend his time lurking on the second level, waiting to hear from Shaw.

 

Perhaps Reese had been doing a better job of tracking her; amongst all the chaos, Shaw really hadn’t paid him much thought.

 

Somehow, she still couldn’t believe that she had left the bar unscathed. Sure, her neck would bruise from Martine’s gun, but that was it. In all the scenarios she had ran in her mind, this one was the most unlikely.

 

But there was one thing she had to do, before she was truly free. And maybe then the thought of Root lying on the cold ground wouldn’t be as uncomfortable as it was now.

 

“I’ve heard disturbing news,” Finch greeted her, his eyes gazing at the city that extended before his eyes. A big part of it had been forced into darkness, while the rest of New York blinked innocently under the stars.

 

In her hands, the envelope felt like it had been soaked in Root’s blood, and Shaw couldn’t wait to rid herself of it. “Here,” she croaked out, her throat still sore from the smoke.

 

Reese stepped forward from out of the shadows and grabbed the package, eyeing Shaw wearily. They didn’t trust her, not anymore, and Shaw couldn’t blame them. They had followed Root here to help her, and Shaw had emptied half her gun in her chest.

 

It didn’t matter that Finch and Reese had been the ones derailing Root’s plans to begin with; that by lurking around her they had tripped invisible wires that had set the trap around her. They had been well-intentioned, at least.

 

People who wanted to make things right, Shaw realised, often got them wrong.

 

“Are those...?” Finch wondered aloud, walking up to Reese and leaning on him as he opened the envelope to peek inside.

 

“The originals, yeah,” Shaw shrugged.

 

Finch smiled, despite the pain that clouded his gaze. “You gave them copies.”

 

Shaw nodded, averting her eyes. “Gotta trust someone,” she inhaled sharply, her thoughts still escaping towards Root.

 

Her chest strangely constricted at that, as if something heavy had dropped on top of her and she couldn’t shake it off. She blinked before she nodded, and just like that found herself halfway out the door.

 

“Ms Shaw,” Finch stopped her in her tracks. “What are you going to do now?”

 

She swallowed hard. She hadn’t settled on anything yet – had one destination in mind, and that was it. Now that she had the means to do whatever she wanted, she’d have to decide. It was, she guessed, the difference between surviving and living.

 

She wasn’t sure what that meant for her.

 

“I don’t know,” she answered without turning. “But cocktails on a beach sounds nice.”

 

Driving out of town as the sun started to rise, Shaw pressed down the gas pedal, the weight slowly lifting from her chest.

 

With the highway ahead of her and a fortune stashed in the trunk, she felt almost giddy. Almost like that kid who had, all those years ago, left home to enroll in the U.S. Armed Forces, with nothing but a bag of clothes and a sandwich.

 

Ready to take on the world. Ready to finally be someone.


	12. 1953

“I need your help.”

 

Ragged breathing and hushed words woke Shaw from her slumber even more than the ringing phone that had preceded them. Whatever sleep still fogged her mind when she had picked up the phone was gone in an instant, and she winced as she noticed the time. Two hours into a new day, and already she had somewhere to be. The city’s lights burned bright against the night sky, colourful and blinking, almost mocking.

 

“Can you hear me?” Taylor asked, worry seeping into his tone. “Shaw?”

 

Swallowing hard, Shaw rushed a hand through her hair. “Yeah kid,” she answered after a few seconds, throat raspy. It wasn’t a pleasant wake-up call – though she had experience way worse over the years. “What’s going on?”

 

She grimaced as she noticed her heartbeat spiking at the thought that Carter might be in trouble. It wasn’t something she did; worry over someone else’s fate. Shaw didn’t do _stress_ just like she didn’t _care_ for others, and yet her palms were turning wet, and her breathing had almost entirely stopped, as if the slightest sound could cut the connection with Taylor. Instead of answers, all she received from him was an address that she scribbled quickly, promising to be there soon as one hand reached for her keys.

 

“Don’t tell my mother,” he insisted before he disconnected the call.

 

A weight fell in Shaw’s gut as she replaced the receiver back on the phone. It didn’t leave as she rapidly put on a shirt and a pair of pants – only seemed to grow exponentially as she struggled with the suspenders.

 

Because Taylor had called _her_.

 

It wasn’t long before she was speeding down the street, rushing towards an address in Brooklyn where she had no idea what she would find. And despite the fact that she hated running into a situation she knew nothing about, she couldn’t waste a second.

 

Because Taylor was in trouble. And Shaw had been his first call.

 

She tried to set the thoughts aside, the storm brewing inside her even as she pressed down the gas pedal. Her pulse refused to return to normal and her throat strangely hurt, as if she was choking on something. But she had no time to question it, and she had barely parked the car in front of the address that already she had her gun out, ready for whatever was coming for her.

 

From the shadows of an alleyway emerged two silhouettes, one clinging to the other, obviously hurt. Taylor’s arm was wrapped around the stranger’s waist, holding them up. Two steps forward and Shaw could see the second teenager better – a young boy, younger than Taylor by a few years, with a broken nose and a few cuts on his face, holding his ribs like they had been cracked.

 

“That kid needs a hospital,” Shaw warned them, not bothering to ask for more details. This neighbourhood, this time of night – either the kid was in one of those street gangs or he had crossed paths with them. Either way, she was strangely relieved to see that what little blood stained Taylor’s clothes seemed to be coming from the boy. With Taylor relatively unscathed, it was easier to breathe.

 

Taylor grimaced, “he wants to go home.”

 

Shaw sighed as she took a look at them both. A hospital would be better, but with it came paperwork and questions. That kind of injuries on a kid would sure grant him a visit from the cops – something the boy wanted to avoid at all costs, it would seem. It was a ridiculous decision to risk internal hemorrhaging over something as trivial as police investigation, but the stranger wasn’t her kid.

 

She didn’t like to wonder of what she would have done if the situation was reversed – if it had been Taylor that had gotten himself hurt.

 

Her throat itched again, a wincing pain that jabbed just under her neck.

 

“Fine,” she opened the car’s back door, “but don’t bleed all over my seat.”

 

Relief flooded Taylor’s face as he helped his friend to sit on the back seat. “Told you she was alright,” he whispered, but not low enough that Shaw couldn’t hear.

 

Her stomach twisted as she walked back to the driver’s door, her eyes scrutinizing everything but the two kids scrambling aboard her car. But the city was quiet, and whatever trouble had happened here was long gone. All that remained was blood on the sidewalk, hushed breaths and pained hisses.

 

She slumped down behind the driving wheel with her pulse still oddly racing. This time she drove more slowly even though everything in her itched to ride fast. She pictured leaving the city behind and driving towards nowhere, running away really, and the thought was strangely soothing.

 

It wasn’t until she was left alone with Taylor and taking him home that she felt that weight in her stomach returning. She glanced at the mirror to find him still on the backseat, looking tired and older than he had ever looked. Almost a man, now, she realised. In just a few years, he would be as old as Cole had been when his number had come up.

 

When a lottery had stolen his better years and sent him across an ocean to die alone. Shaw grimaced at the thought, and wondered if it was something that ever kept Carter awake at night – the knowledge that the war that was brewing at the other end of the world could still take her son away from her at any moment, and that there was nothing she could do about it. The trouble in New York’s streets, the fight against communism in the East; all in all it was all the same to Shaw. Kids dying for no goddamn reason.

 

When she stopped in front of Taylor’s building, she felt him linger on the seat, searching for words he would probably never find. “I won’t tell her,” Shaw promised. His door opened, and she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of her; “you stay out of trouble now, okay?”

 

The concern in her voice bothered her most than anything, but there was still a threat laced in there. A reminder that she wouldn’t keep this from Carter for long, if he kept this up – whatever _this_ was.

 

He simply nodded, his eyes filling with tears, and walked up the porch. It was only when he had stepped inside, safe and sound, that Shaw let out the sigh she had held onto ever since her phone had rung in the middle of the night.

 

Ever since she had realised it was Taylor at the other end.

 

Taylor calling _her_ for help.

 

It wasn’t like they hadn’t gone along fine in the past – ever since Shaw had met the kid she had been fond of him, in a way. Polite and yet sassy, he had a brilliant future ahead of him, and a kind heart like his mother. No, Shaw rather liked Taylor, but she had never stopped to think of what he thought of her.

 

Had never wondered if Taylor liked her or trusted her; what role she played in his life. She had been seeing Carter regularly for years now and never before had she thought that she was a part of his world too, even though she rarely saw him.

 

The weight inside her was sinking and her with it as she returned home, driving with only the sound of the engine as company. It bothered her, the idea that someone – a _kid_ , at that – considered her trustworthy. It wasn’t unlike the way she had felt when Gen had stayed in her office for two weeks before Carter had found her a home. Fourteen days of living with someone had reminded her how she wasn’t wired for it – but that didn’t stop others from getting attached.

 

It troubled Shaw for a few days, that incident with Taylor, until that night Carter came to her office, her eyes filled with anger, sadness, and something that Shaw couldn’t decipher. Her movements were rushed with some strange desperation, fingertips lingering over scars; it felt so very intimate, and yet somehow detached.

 

Like Carter was trying to convey _I want you_ and _goodbye_ all at once.

 

It was dizzying, and for a moment Shaw tried to slow down the hands that tugged at her suspenders, the fingers that undid the buttons of her shirt, the lips that sucked at her neck. And then, she heard it; faint and soft, tickling the hair just under her ear.

 

“Thank you,” Carter whispered so warmly it was almost uncomfortable.

 

Shaw groaned, pushing her towards the bed instead, trying to ignore the tightening of her chest, the burn around her sternum. Averting her eyes from Carter’s.

 

She guessed that Carter had found out about Taylor, about Shaw coming to help him in the middle of the night. Somehow, something had changed that night, without either of them noticing, and tonight it seemed they were falling apart. Coming to an end.

 

Because Shaw couldn’t be that person in Carter’s life; that second parent that Taylor craved to have sometimes. She simply couldn’t play that role, and Carter understood. Didn’t really want to let go, but knew she had to.

 

Shaw dug her fingernails just above Carter’s waist, creating small crescents that she wished would stay, but probably wouldn’t. Time would wipe them away and there was only so much that Shaw could do about it; she could only forget, for a moment, what this night meant.

 

In Carter’s sad eyes, she found the same conclusion.

 

Carter fell on the mattress without a word, her hands snaking around Shaw’s neck and pulling her close. With their chests flushed together, Shaw could almost feel Carter’s pulse thrumming under her. One of Shaw’s thighs parted Carter’s legs, insistent as she closed her eyes, forehead falling on the pillow.

 

“Stay with me,” Carter muttered against her, fingers pushing away the suspenders and the white shirt. “Don’t go yet.”

 

Shaw sighed lightly before she moved to trace a line of kisses against Carter’s collarbone, unbuttoning her dress almost absently. Carter hummed in approval, fingers tangling in Shaw’s hair, pulling the curls into a fist. Revealing more skin, Shaw’s arousal flared, dissipating the pressure in her chest and quieting her thoughts for a moment.

 

She sank into Carter’s body even more, feeling the faint movements of her hips grinding against Shaw’s thigh, searching for some relief. From there, it was a dance they both knew all too well; moans and hisses like music to which Shaw moved almost effortlessly, pulling sounds out of Carter that seemed to echo in her bedroom with an intensity they never had before.

 

Carter’s perfume, always discreet, now seemed to fill the air all around Shaw and she bit down the skin of her neck as her fingers curled inside of her, as if trying to take up all the space, too. As if she wanted Carter to remember the scent of her just as much as she would never forget Carter’s.

 

In Carter’s arms, watching her coming apart, Shaw felt her pulse picking up and her temperature rising even as her sternum turned icy cold. Her mouth ran dry and for a moment she wondered if this was what fear felt like – helpless to hold onto Carter and yet unwilling to let her go she frowned, her forehead falling to rest against a shoulder that had become hot and sweaty.

 

“It’s okay,” Carter promised, her voice raspy from the ragged breaths she was drawing. “We’re gonna be okay.”

 

Shaw bit her lip so hard that it cut the skin and she tasted her own blood as Carter shivered under her. She closed her eyes and listened to Carter’s hums, to the way her whole body seemed to burn with pleasure and release.

 

Pulling apart slightly, Shaw felt a rush of warmth flooding her veins, her eyes finding Carter’s. Smiling sadly, Carter’s thumb brushed just under the cut on her lip. “We’re gonna be alright.”

 

Nodding, Shaw let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

 

 

* * *

 

Root parked her car in a visitor’s spot and checked herself in the mirror one last time. Empty eyes stared back at her; she wasn’t crying anymore. She felt exhausted, and both heavy and light at the same time. Everything around her didn’t seem real, as if the intensity of the moment clashed so abruptly with the day-to-day that it simply couldn’t be true. The minty toothpaste taste in her mouth. The sound of her keys as she pulled them out of the ignition. The tangible ground under her feet as she stepped out of the vehicle.

 

The sound of a door closing.

 

She gave her ID cards to the security guy at the main entrance, and then to two other uniforms inside. She went through the motions barely talking, flashing a smile now and then; inside there was nothing but neon lights and the smell of bleach.

 

She looked at the form she had to sign, a gulp in her throat. It wasn’t her name anymore; not a name she ever wanted to hear again. She grabbed the pen and held onto her breath as she signed it one last time.

 

_Samantha Groves._

 

That woman would die today.

 

She walked down the corridors without a word, following instructions and keeping her head down. When she reached the room with the other guests, she couldn’t recognise any of them. Journalists, possibly. One of them was a lawyer at Hanna’s trial, but Root couldn’t remember if he had been good or not. All she recalled was how he had grimaced when the court had announced Trent Russell’s sentence. Nine years of jail time – in ‘59, Russell would be released into the world, his sentence served. He would get his freedom back; but Root would be there, then.

 

Then, he would pay.

 

But as of now he was still locked away, and Root had no intention to spare him another thought today. No, all she could think of were Hanna’s eyes at the trial.

 

Hanna’s red, tired, empty eyes. She had looked at Root and hadn’t seen her at all, and to this day Root still felt the wound; it flared up in the middle of the night sometimes, when she thought of a warm body that wasn’t there anymore.

 

That had never been there, really. Hanna had always been married, and Root had always been a liar.

 

They were heading here all along, maybe, Root realised as the prison guards instructed the small crowd to move into another room. The real one.

 

The one she had never wanted to be in.

 

She took a seat, not hearing the buzzing of quiet conversations around. Eyes on the window – curtains closed like at the theatre – her throat tightening. She remembered to breathe and then forgot half a dozen times. She imagined Hanna on the other side, how terrified she might be, and wished she could hold her hand.

 

If this had to happen, Root wanted to be with her, her face hidden in Hanna’s neck and her hand over her chest. To tell her everything she had never had time to say – there had never been enough time before. But now Root would make all the time for her – Root wouldn’t live a second of her life without Hanna in her arms.

 

If this had to happen, Root wanted to be the one to press that button. Wanted to be the one responsible because really, she was. She hadn’t been careful enough, hadn’t protected Hanna like she had promised. She was the one that had lead Hanna to this chair and she had to take that weight on her shoulder. Had to live with it.

 

If this had to happen, Root wanted to be the victim and the executioner. She wanted to die here with Hanna so Hanna wouldn’t be alone. She wanted to cry and scream and crush that window.

 

She did none of those things. She kept her eyes forward, and didn’t blink when they pulled open the curtains.

 

Root stopped breathing entirely.

 

On the other side of the glass, Hanna was sitting on the chair. Wrists, ankles bound to it by metal clasps. Root couldn’t stop herself from wondering if they were cold – Hanna hated the cold. It brought back the memory of that day, that damn blizzard outside and the sheets that had caught on fire. She remembered running her hand into Hanna’s blonde hair, how her curls tangled around Root’s fingers.

 

But this Hanna had her head shaved. This Hanna had her knuckles whitening from where she held onto the chair. This Hanna looked pale, and sick, and starved.

 

This Hanna looked at Root, and this time Root held her gaze.

 

This time Root wouldn’t let go.

 

Forcing herself to breathe, Root tried to calm her heart. She kept her eyes on Hanna, as if insisting – _don’t look at them, look at me_ – and Hanna did the same. A tear ran down Root’s cheek, another on Hanna’s. Root wiped hers away, taking a deep breath as she realised Hanna couldn’t do the same. She bit her lip until she felt blood.

 

Hanna would never bleed again.

 

After this day, Hanna would never be hurt again.

 

That was Root’s only comfort as she stared, unable to do anything. There would be no pardon – everyone in this small room knew that already. There was no chance that this was going to happen any other way and somehow it made it easier when the guard started talking again.

 

When he reminded Hanna of what she had been accused of – _lies_ – and then asked her if there was anything she wanted to say. If she had any last words.

 

Hanna looked at Root. And shook her head.

 

Root took in a sharp breath as they shoved a hood on Hanna’s head, and prepared the chair.

 

She counted the seconds until they flicked that switch.

 

Stared as Hanna’s limbs turned violently tensed, and then desperately still.

 

She waited for tears that never came. They pronounced Hanna dead at 16:06 and Root already knew that the date and the time would never leave her again. That this moment, this day, would define all of those to come.

 

Walking out of the jail was truly easier than walking in had been. No one asked for her ID, no one tried to make small talk. She didn’t have to fake smiles or sign her name. All she had to do was leave.

 

And that was something Root had always been good at.

 

She sat in silence in her car, wondered why she wasn’t crying or screaming or simply just reacting to anything. And then she remembered.

 

Sam Groves was dead. She was Root, now.

 

And Root had a world to burn, and a vengeance to plan.


	13. 1959

_"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer_

_they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and_

_I_ _didn't_ _know what I was doing in New York."_

Sylvia Plath, _The Bell Jar_

 

* * *

 

The radio sang its tune from its corner in his office, but Finch barely heard it anymore. The overall quietness of his house, the peaceful sound of the wind rushing through leaves outside, all of it couldn’t soothe the emptiness he had felt ever since New York’s blackout.

 

Ever since Sam Groves – _Root_ – had passed away.

 

He had sent Reese to search the debris of the Decima club, but for the first time since they had started working together, Reese had returned empty handed. And so, with nothing left to do or save in New York, Finch had taken the next train back to Washington with a heavy chest, and a headache that wouldn’t leave him alone.

 

It was his fault. He had followed her, thinking she might need his assistance once more, and hadn’t realised that he was tripping invisible wires – setting off alarms in her wake. He wondered, more than once, if Root’s plans would have succeeded if he hadn’t been there.

 

If she would have shared those plans with her, if he had been there for her, before all of it.

 

But the past was as silent as it had always been, and it served no purpose to dwell on the events of ’51. On that awful deal that his superiors had agreed upon, so that they could use the Laskeys’ executions as examples to how the nation responded to treachery. For years he had convinced himself that Hanna Frey Laskey had most certainly been a Soviet spy as well, despite Root’s insistence that she hadn’t been.

 

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

 

He wasn’t certain of anything, and it was eating away a part of him that he wasn’t sure deserved to be saved.

 

That afternoon, the pain slightly soothed by the murmur of the orchestra on the radio and the warmth of his tea, he settled behind his desk with one task in mind. Revisiting the files Root had stolen from his office before she had fled to New York. It was one last hope that he had held onto – one last attempt to get answers.

 

Opening the large envelope, he pulled out the paperwork with a reverence he had usually reserved for historical documents and rare books. As he did, from amongst the small pile of sheets, a small square letter fell on his desk. He frowned as he grabbed it, the paper almost rough under his fingertips. On it, he recognised the written address – a postal box in Washington.

 

A strange feeling of expectation and hope rose inside of him – the scrambling, barely readable, could have come from one person only. The one person aside from him who had ever used that box.

 

One woman he had, up until now, presumed dead.

 

His letter opener cut at the corner, liberating only a small note from within the envelope.

 

_LXXVIII-1. PHMM MIE VSDWHBV FV CDICZ QSX._

 

His pulse raced as he pushed himself off the chair, grabbing his cane with a rush he hadn’t felt in long time. Nearly running towards his library, it took him merely a minute to find his copy of _The War of the Worlds_ – still worn from being used so often all those years ago. He hadn’t looked at it since the trial, and he ran a finger over the cracks of its spine almost lovingly.

 

On page seventy-eight, the first sentence – the one Root was pointing out to him, hopefully not from her grave – read; “The thunderstorm had passed.”

 

His eyes watered as breath seemingly returned to his lungs, a pressure he hadn’t noticed was there now entirely lifted. He returned to his desk in a hurry, grabbing a pen and quickly getting to work. De-encrypting the message was almost an exercise, his brain pulling at the memories to remind him the simple one-time pad encryption.

 

When he was finally done, Finch smiled in relief, allowing a strange kind of joy to seep into his heart.

 

_Wait for someone to catch you_ , Root had sent him.

 

Perhaps she had found someone, in the end. Someone new that she could trust not to let her fall.

 

Maybe that was all she had ever needed.

 

 

* * *

 

The sun melted the ice in her drink too quickly, but Shaw didn’t mind. The sound of waves crashing on the beach was oddly relaxing and the other tourists of the hotel had finally learned to leave her alone. She sipped her cocktail in silence, the sunlight heating her skin pleasantly, sunglasses darkening her surroundings.

 

Nothing could disturb her moment – or so she believed, until she heard footsteps in the sand behind her.

 

“Missed me?” Root grinned.

 

She untied the large towel that covered her chest, gracefully placing it on the ground beside Shaw’s. It revealed a bikini that Shaw eyes almost hungrily, despite the discoloration just above the heart. Three purple bruises where Shaw’s bullets had hit the manganese steel vest, that night.

 

“Not really, no,” Shaw lied.

 

Ever since she had left the Decima club – ever since Martine had blown it up, Shaw had been strangely agitated. It was something she was still reluctant to call _worry_ ; a persistent thought of mainly constructed of what-ifs. But whatever Root had to do that night, whoever was that Trent Russell that she had to kill, Shaw knew it hadn’t been her place to follow.

 

That it was something Root had to do by herself.

 

Some things about that night, Shaw would never understand. How Root had gained access to the city grid and timed a blackout so that she could come and go in the chaos as she pleased; how she had known that Simmons wouldn’t see a difference between the original files of the documents she had stolen and their copies. How Root had been right about Martine burning up the evidence at the club instead of sweeping the floors of the bar to hide a crime scene.

 

Root slumped down on her towel beside Shaw’s, her bare feet digging into the sand as she gazed at Shaw lovingly.

 

“What?” Shaw grunted, her drink suddenly lacking alcohol.

 

Running a hand through her hair, Root blinked. “Nothing,” she smirked, “just admiring the view.”

 

Shaw rolled her eyes at the flirtation, all traces of worry already long gone. “Yeah well the ocean’s that way,” she pointed towards the turquoise end of the beach, despite knowing all too well that Root wouldn’t stop staring anytime soon. She cleared her throat, absently toying with the straw in her drink. “You took care of it?”

 

That wiped the smile from Root’s face; she folded her legs, her cheek coming to rest on her knees, arms wrapped around herself. She looked thinner than before – paler, perhaps, if that was even possible.

 

“I did,” she answered, her voice cold.

 

Two days after she had left New York, Shaw had seen an article about a dead man found in his apartment in Queens Village. She hadn’t read the details – somehow it felt like intruding on something that wasn’t hers to know – and yet she had known right away that it was Root’s work.

 

“Your friend was nice,” Root grinned once again, all traces of her previous seriousness vanished.

 

“Carter?” Shaw asked, more to make conversation than anything. Root couldn’t possibly mean anyone else. Only Carter would’ve agreed to help her without question, despite the very questionable nature of Shaw’s request. It wasn’t everyday one would find someone ready to assist a stranger in faking their death without blinking an eye.

 

It wasn’t everyday one would befriend someone like Carter.

 

“Hot, too,” Root smirked. Shaw rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I sense history there.”

 

Sighing too loudly for an afternoon under the sun, Shaw shook her head. “We’re not talking about Carter and I.”

 

Root brightened up at that, and Shaw guessed she had already said too much. She was starting to regret this, the whole ‘scamming a group of criminals and running away with a trunk full of cash’ thing. But it was too late to go back now, and besides, the beach wasn’t that bad. The location certainly wasn’t as cheesy as Root had made it sound that day, when she had slipped Shaw a postcard from this hotel and asked her to meet her there, _after everything_.

 

Sure, the drink could use more rum, and the company could be quieter, but all in all, it really wasn’t that bad.

 

Especially when Root straddled her right there on the beach, with absolutely no care as to whoever looked their way. With her knees digging in the sand on both sides of Shaw’s waist, the way Root smirked was worth the now-healing cracked ribs, Shaw figured.

 

Root pulled off the sunglasses from Shaw’s face, biting her lower lip in expectation as she placed them over her eyes, an index pushing them against the bridge of her nose triumphantly.

 

“I don’t really feel like talking anyway,” Root whispered, leaning in.

 

Yes, perhaps retirement really wasn’t that bad after all.


End file.
